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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



BETTER SCHOOLS 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



BETTER SCHOOLS 



BY 



B. C. GREGORY 

LATE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS IN TRENTON, NEW JERSEY 
AND IN CHELSEA, MASSACHUSETTS 



EDITED BY 

JAMES L. HUGHES 

CHIEF INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS, TORONTO, CANADA 



Nrtu gorfc 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1912 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1912, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and elcctrotyped. Published June, 1912. 



J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



SCLA31639I 



PREFACE 

Those who had the privilege of knowing Dr. Gregory 
intimately during the last few years of his life were hope- 
ful that he would do an essential work for the schools of 
the world. He had the spirit of a great teacher, and he 
was a true man. He understood the fundamental prin- 
ciples of Froebel's philosophy much better than most 
of the progressive educational men, better even than 
many of the Kindergarten leaders. 

He clearly grasped two of the vital principles that are 
transforming educational thought and revolutionizing 
educational practice: first, that the child, and not the 
knowledge to be communicated to him, should be the 
determining basis of pedagogical systems and of school 
methods ; second, that the child develops power — which 
is infinitely more important than knowledge — by his 
own self-activity, and by self-activity only. 

Dr. Gregory made these two principles the basis of 
educational practice, and the unfailing test of all school 
work. His lectures and his writings revealed a rapidly 
developing insight that fully justified the hope that he 
would become a revealer of truth and a transformer of 
conditions in the schools in harmony with the most 
advanced educational ideals. 

He was writing a series of educational articles with the 

v 



VI PREFACE 

view of having them published in book form, when his 
life work came suddenly to an end. Some of these 
articles were published in a local paper in Chelsea, 
Massachusetts, where he was Superintendent of Schools 
at the time of his death. Others were published in 
educational magazines. 

It was his intention to publish these articles in book 
form, and many of those who had been admitted to his 
circle of friends, or who had heard him expound and apply 
his principles of education at Summer Schools or at 
institute meetings, expressed the hope that they might be 
collected and published. The privilege of editing them 
was graciously given to me. To do the work assigned 
me has been joyous and uplifting. I hope the result — 
his book — may be a worthy memorial to him, and that 
it may guide many of the teachers of his own and other 
lands to clearer insight, broader thought, and higher 
power as teachers. 

Teachers will find the book stimulating to original 
investigation. It emphasizes the need of a closer unity 
between the school work of the child and the work and 
life of the world in which ht lives. It advocates the 
wisdom of adapting the course of study and the operative 
processes of the school to the nature of the child and 
to the progressive development of his powers. It makes 
the child and his activities and interests the center of 
the school universe. It accounts for the child's apathy 
and carelessness in school, and reveals the methods by 
which he may be kept as vitally interested and energeti- 



PREFACE Vll 

cally productive in school as he is in his free life outside 
of school. It shows how the bright, alert, interested, 
achieving child of five may be saved from the too common 
torpor and indifference and ineffectiveness induced by 
the schools at fifteen. It changes the aim of education 
from mere knowledge to power, skill, and character; 
from books to life. 

Dr. Gregory did not use new thought merely to reveal 
the weakness of old ideals and practices. He was construc- 
tive, not merely destructive. He used new truth to 
reform conditions and in his reconstruction he preserved 
all that was useful or beautiful in the revelations of the 
past. His theories are not visionary; his ideals are 
clearly expounded and easily understood. They are 
applicable to schools of all grades. Superintendents 
and teachers will find the book interesting, instructive, 
and inspiring. 

JAMES L. HUGHES. 
Toronto, August, 191 1. 



February 20, 191 2. 
Mrs. Hannah B. Gregory, 
5 Fitz Terrace, 

Chelsea, Massachusetts. 

My dear Mrs. Gregory: 

I am greatly pleased that the letters contributed by 
Doctor Gregory to the Chelsea Gazette, shortly before his 
death, are to be published in book form. These arti- 
cles I read with the greatest interest and pleasure from 
week to week, as they appeared. You will remember 
I wrote to Doctor Gregory at that time, urging him to 
recast them and have them made into a book. 

Doctor Gregory had an unusual insight into the prin- 
ciples of education, and a still more unusual ability to 
state them in clear English, easily intelligible to the 
great mass of teachers. It was for this reason, I think, 
that year after year at the Summer School of the 
South, held at Knoxville, Tennessee, under my super- 
vision, a large number of the thoughtful teachers rilled 
his classes to hear his lectures on the principles of Froe- 
bel as applied to education in schools above the kinder- 
garten. His constant study of education not only from 
the books but concretely and at first hand, his clearness 
of statement, and his sweet spirit made him an ideal 
teacher of teachers. 



X COMMUNICATION 

These letters have the added value that must ever 
come to any writings that have sprung out of the life 
and heart of a man when working for the advancement 
of a great cause. I am glad they are to be given this 
more permanent form by a man so capable of interpret- 
ing Doctor Gregory as is Doctor Hughes. The book 
cannot fail to accomplish much good for the cause of 
truer ideals and better practice in the schoolroom. 
Yours sincerely, 

P. P. CLAXTON. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Self-Activity i 

II. The Kindergarten n 

III. Continuity of Kindergarten and Elementary 

School 27 

IV. Gumption 39 

V. Manual Training 54 

VI. Industrial Training 64 

VII. Nature Study 89 

VIII. Play 98 

IX. Popular Criticisms of Schools . . . .111 
X. Music, Literature, and Drawing as Elements 

of Character 130 

XI. Arithmetic 136 

XII. Geography 142 

XIII. Reading 161 

XIV. Spelling 169 

XV. Language 197 

XVI. History 245 

XVII. Basic Principles 252 

Appendix 261 



xi 



BETTER SCHOOLS 



CHAPTER I 
Self-activity 

The weakest element in modern educational thought 
is the belief, conscious or unconscious, that a child's 
character may be constructed by the teacher, and that 
it may be constructed by the judicious selection and 
teaching of certain amounts of different kinds of knowl- 
edge. Nearly as weak is the idea that the great aim 
of the school should be to communicate knowledge to the 
pupils as a preparation for their life work. 

The child's success in life will depend mainly on two 
things: his power and his skill. The development of his 
power and his skill should, therefore, be the supreme aim 
of the school, not the storing of his mind — or, as is too 
often the case, his memory merely. The overvaluation 
of knowledge, and the inability to recognize the selfhood 
of the child, are responsible for the failures in modern 
education. The New Education believes that the child — 
not knowledge — is power, and that the development of 
this power by the child's self-activity is the supreme 
work of the school. This thought lies at the basis of 
every great modern tendency in education. 



2 BETTER SCHOOLS 

You cannot "grow" a child's body. You cannot 
" grow " a child's mind. But modern educational practice 
says you can do the latter. Therefore modern educa- 
tional practice is absurd. This is our fundamental 
absurdity, the absurdity on which we build our other 
absurdities. It is our pet absurdity. 

The postulate, so far as it applies to the body, does not 
admit of argument. You can surround a child with 
conditions favorable to growth, but he himself must do 
the growing. He must do the eating, the exercising, the 
sleeping, the bathing. Nobody else can eat, exercise, 
sleep, or bathe for him. But when one turns to the 
growth of the mind, a spurious pedagogy asserts itself. 
No one who thoughtfully considers the data offered by 
thousands of schoolrooms can come to any other con- 
clusion than that our practice, at least, is fundamentally 
wrong. The pupil's attitude toward work is seen in 
the aimlessness and feebleness of his efforts, in the frag- 
mentary character of his answers, in the inarticulate 
language in which they are expressed, in the slovenliness 
of his written work, in the perfection to which he has re- 
duced the art of dawdling, in his slouching posture in 
writing, and often in the extraordinary contortions by 
which he arrives at such a posture. 

The teacher, on his side, favors this attitude and min- 
isters to the condition of things which lies back of the 
attitude, by coming to his assistance in every possible 
way, explaining before the pupil himself has really tried 
to comprehend, filling out his imperfect sentences, point- 



SELF-ACTIVITY 3 

ing out his errors, most of which the child knows very 
well are errors, and at every point anticipating healthy 
effort on his part. 

Let the following test be applied by any teacher. 
Hand a set of compositions back to a class without in- 
dicating the errors, and demand that the errors shall be 
not only corrected but discovered, and that the composi- 
tions shall be rewritten. Continue to hand back the same 
compositions indefinitely until all the errors are discovered 
by the writers, and a composition perfect in view of the 
state of the child's progress is evolved. Persevere in this 
treatment, and soon the child becomes practically inde- 
pendent. Whereas the pupils at the beginning could not 
produce a perfect composition without many efforts, at 
the end of the year they are able to do so with one or two 
efforts. The same course of treatment applied to arith- 
metic, Latin, German, or anything else, will reveal the 
same result. It becomes apparent, when such a course 
of treatment is persisted in, that for the first time in their 
school lives the pupils are self-active. The teacher learns 
how low his standards have been, and for the first time 
in his life grasps the possibilities of self -activity in edu- 
cation. Indeed the modesty of the teacher's usual de- 
mands on the child would be amusing if it were not so 
serious. 

No one can do for another what the latter can do for 
himself, without interfering to that extent with his 
growth. Growth is from within and is brought about, 
consciously or unconsciously, by the acts of the party who 



4 BETTER SCHOOLS 

desires to grow. Whenever a teacher does for a child 
what the child could have done for himself, he deprives 
him of the right to grow ; if he persists in such treatment, 
he stunts the child's growth; if he could do absolutely 
everything for the child, the child would not grow at all. 

This treatment of the child is sometimes called "the 
new education." It is a libel on that honored phrase. The 
new education emancipates the individuality of the child. 
Its very basis is self-activity, and it aims to place the 
child in such an environment as to evoke that activity. 
In the new education there is a time to explain and a 
time to cease from explanation, a time to give help and 
a time to withhold it. 

There is but one remedy. The child must be forced 
back on himself. He must have just as much help as is 
necessary to place him in a position to help himself , and 
no more. This amount varies with the child, but its limit 
in any case is a sacred line, over which you pass at his 
peril. The teacher must more and more withdraw him- 
self. He must stop meddling. There is no educational 
discipline but self-discipline, and, in its final resolution, 
there is no education but self-education. 

Self-activity must not be confounded with the activity 
of the pupil in response to the suggestions or directions of 
the teacher. The teacher's duty is to reveal new laws 
and new principles that the pupil cannot discover for him- 
self, but the application of the principles should be made 
by the pupils themselves. The simplest and most per- 
fect test of the value of a teacher's work is the amount 



SELF-ACTIVITY 5 

of self -activity developed in the pupils. The great aim of 
every teacher should be to discover new methods of arous- 
ing vital interest in his pupils as the true basis for in- 
creased self-activity on their part. 

Self-activity is not an empty word with a big sound. 
It lies at the basis of all teaching. The lack of it explains 
most of our failures. To really grasp the idea will revo- 
lutionize any teacher. 

The product of the public school system taken as a 
whole is not inspiring ; in many cases it is disheartening. 

This does not apply to all the schools in our land, but 
it applies to most of them. The picture is not accurate 
in its entirety in all schools, but the weakness is in most 
of them. It is generally, at least, a clearly defined tend- 
ency, and often it is a clearly defined fact. 

And the condition grows worse from the time the child 
enters school. When we receive him he is a bright, wide- 
awake, self-active little child. When we get through 
with him at the close of the high school he is neither 
bright, wide-awake, nor self-active. Every teacher 
knows that these statements are true. The high 
school teacher, for example, is emphatic in his criticisms 
of the grammar school graduates whom he receives. 
He is right, but he does not do any better. The dete- 
rioration does not stop at the high school. And the 
worst critic of all is the business man who receives our 
output. 

This is not education. Indeed, such a state of things 
makes real education impossible. The importance of 



6 BETTER SCHOOLS 

education lies not in the arithmetic, geography, etc., but 
in the reactions arising from these studies; not in how 
much arithmetic a boy learns, but in what sort of an 
arithmetician he becomes. Which, for example, ought 
we to prefer in arithmetic : rapidity and ease in straight- 
away percentage, or a feeble and perfunctory power in 
four cases of percentage ? What should be the outcome 
in arithmetic ? Simple arithmetical power, and this can 
be taught by the use of a very narrow field of topics, so 
that the pupil will be able to take up the omitted topics 
whenever it is necessary. But no such definite outcome 
as arithmetical power is before the teacher whose aim is 
merely the acquisition of facts. Picture a student with 
arithmetical power and a love for arithmetic who has 
never studied partial payments, but is called upon to use 
partial payments after he has left school. He will learn 
the subject in five minutes. 

But children do not leave school with that power. 
They acquire merely a mechanical, and generally a daw- 
dling ability to do a few specific things. 

So much for the diagnosis. Now for the cause of the 
disease and its treatment. The analysis is simple and has 
been hinted at already. The worst of the trouble lies in 
the tendency on the part of the teacher to do for the child 
what he can do for himself. 

Every time a child acts for himself he grows stronger. 
Whenever some one else does his work he grows weaker. 
Let the process of outside assistance go on year after 
year and the present results are explained. To develop 



SELF-ACTIVITY 7 

his arm, as a child he must use his arm. The law applies 
equally to his brain. 

But there is a deeper question. Why do not teachers 
demand and get self-activity ? 

Teachers may be divided into two classes : those who can 
get this self-activity and those who cannot. Whatever 
other results a teacher may obtain, if she does not obtain 
this result, her product will fall far short of the true ideal. 
What is the consideration on which the whole question 
is determined ? The answer is, the outcome, — the out- 
come which the teacher proposes for her own attainment. 
There are two possible outcomes between which the 
teacher must choose. The outcome that attracts many 
teachers is the acquisition of facts and a certain mechani- 
cal efficiency that can be measured by examination. 

When this attainment is placed above power, the end of 
education is misconceived. Attainment is essential, but 
the world needs power, and the complaint of the world 
is that it does not get it. There is no loss in attainment 
when power is the outcome. Power makes attainment 
possible, and it is the only way in which it is rationally 
possible. 

Let grammar illustrate the distinction. If does and do 
produce a treadmill boy, the reaction is malign. A love 
of written expression, which includes a love of grammar, 
should be the outcome, not mere accuracy in answering 
certain questions. 

This, again, is the reason for failure in many high school 
subjects, e.g. literature. The question is not whether 



8 BETTER SCHOOLS 

the pupils understand a certain classic which has been 
discussed, but whether they long to read other classics for 
themselves. Professor Tyler of Amherst says that the 
teaching of literature in most high schools is like vaccina- 
tion. In vaccination you give a person a mild attack of 
the disease and that insures that he will never have 
another. 

From this point of view, again, the important thing is 
not the number of subjects taught in arithmetic, but the 
reaction caused by those that are taught. 

Again, think of geography in this connection. The 
teacher in whatever grade who has not recently done 
some teaching of Bosnia, Bulgaria, or Turkey, or who 
has not followed the fleet, has misconceived the purpose of 
geography. 1 This is true even if the subject in the course 
of study in the grade is the United States. Why ? Be- 
cause such teaching makes geography live. It is more 
important that geography should live than that the pupil 
should be able to bound states or to tell their capitals. 
Therefore, geography must be cut, but even if it is cut, 
it is entirely possible to teach the balance of it mechani- 
cally. 

The lack of self-activity, I have said, expresses itself 
in the attitudes and positions of children, in their tone of 
voice, in dawdling and careless written work, in unwill- 
ingness for research. According to the psychological law, 
external phenomena react on internal phenomena. In 
accordance with this law we should expect our school 
1 Written during a war in Turkey. 



SELF-ACTIVITY 9 

work to show this reaction. Of course it shows it. An 
apathetic class in reading is a proof that the reading is 
badly taught and is having no educative effect, and this 
is true in the high school as well as in the primary school. 
When children wish to come back to school for geography 
and arithmetic, as they wish to come back for manual 
training and music, the teacher has been truly suc- 
cessful. 

These considerations, therefore, are not merely facts. 
They are indications of wrong conceptions, and of 
failure. Froebel says the child must evolve his own 
personality; he must find himself. But in many cases 
the personality is submerged. There is a vague theory 
that the teachings of the teacher will all blossom by and 
by, even if the child does not show interest in them now. 
The fact is that the teachings do not blossom. 

There are, of course, reasons for this malign state of 
things we have been describing, for which we are not 
responsible. So far as the results in our schools are con- 
trolled by inheritance or by the fact that the pupils have 
been passed up from one class to another with a tendency 
to inactivity accumulating, the teacher is not to blame. 
But while these causes account in part for failure, they 
do not account at all for our lack of effort. 

But there are reasons for which we are responsible. 
For example, there is a state of mind, a false conception 
of the path of the least resistance. It is easier to do 
treadmill work because we know it than to attempt a 
disgression. Old plans, like old shoes, are more com- 



IO BETTER SCHOOLS 

fortable. The teacher sees the phenomenon of apathy, 
but becomes used to it and says it cannot be modified. 

Then there is a stolid conservatism in regard to old 
things. This is maddening. And finally there is the 
failure to conceive the true end of education. 



CHAPTER II 

The Kindergarten 

For one who is imbued with the so-called practical 
views of education only, it is not easy to make an argu- 
ment in favor of the kindergarten. "The kindergarten 
is a pretty sight, the children are evidently happy and 
that, of course, is a good thing, but — what are they 
learning ? Only to play in a variety of expensive ways, 
— a rather costly frill." 

But, on the other hand, what about these same chil- 
dren in the ordinary primary classroom ? Children under 
the age of six, for the most part, get very little in school. 
They dawdle, fuss with busy work, take instruction 
with the greatest difficulty, and lose it with the greatest 
facility. If they entered at six, they would be just as 
far along at seven as they are when they enter at five, 
and they would be more original, more independent, and 
stronger physically. This is not economy either. 

On this supposition the presence of these children in 
school means a waste of energy and money. It would be 
economy to let them play out of doors, begin school at 
six, save money, and increase their power. So much is 
clear. 

But the case is not all in yet. Children on the average 
are not fit for regular primary work before they are 



12 BETTER SCHOOLS 

six, but does it follow from that that they cannot 
learn anything? Every parent knows that they learn 
a great deal and learn it very fast. For instance, 
they learn the English language. Not an insignifi- 
cant achievement, that. A child at the age of six 
speaks English very much better than most college 
graduates speak French, and he learns his new language 
in five years, but he learns it in his own way and not in 
the way the schools teach it. This is not complimentary 
to the schools, more's the pity. 

The child under the age of six has, in fact, certain 
powers which are fully alive and seek exercise. For the 
most part they are not guided, at any rate they receive 
no training. If such an extraordinary accomplishment 
as the learning of a language takes place without train- 
ing and almost without guidance, what might not be 
accomplished with guidance? On this question the 
kindergarten is based. The kindergarten takes the 
child as he is, with all his wonderful powers. It does 
not substitute other powers, it does not seek to train 
what the child has not, it accepts the child just as he is 
made and does not pretend to greater wisdom than the 
Almighty. The little one has not any arithmetic or 
reading or grammar to give ; the Lord has left that out 
for the present. The kindergarten leaves them out, too. 
This general proposition sounds sensible. If the kinder- 
garten can obtain a development along other lines 
corresponding in extent to the language development, 
the trial is surely worth making. 



THE KINDERGARTEN 1 3 

This is the aim of the kindergarten. To determine 
whether it is practical we must answer two questions : 
What is this training ? What is its effect on the child ? 

These are the acquisitions claimed for the kinder- 
garten-trained child. I condense from the statements 
of many primary (not kindergarten) teachers : — 

First, he is awakened. Second, he grasps much more 
readily than other children the idea presented, whether it 
be a direction to be followed, a story to be told, or a new 
word to be learned. Third, the kindergarten child uses 
his senses intelligently. He sees, he hears, and he is able 
to tell about it. He compares what he observes, and thus 
forms his own ideas in regard to everything with which 
he comes in contact. Hence the teacher has a little 
thinker to deal with, a mind ready to begin work for itself. 
Through his habits of observation the kindergarten child 
has gained such a fund of information concerning the world 
around him that the primary teacher has just so many 
more avenues through which to reach his mind. Fourth, 
his powers of attention, alertness, and self-reliance are 
better developed. Fifth, he gains the power of concen- 
tration, which very, very few home children possess. 
Sixth, as he has learned to work unaided at a given task, 
the kindergarten child needs less supervision. Seventh, 
the kindergarten child is more resourceful, and more 
skillful with his hands than home children. Eighth, 
the kindergarten child has been taught the beginnings 
of self-government, unselfishness, respect and reverence 
for the rights of others. Ninth, the kindergarten child 



14 BETTER SCHOOLS 

shows a generally higher moral development than those 
who come directly from the home. Tenth, the little child 
when he comes from the kindergarten knows how to con- 
duct himself. With quick adaptability he comes into 
line with other children; in short, he has learned that 
he is a member of a little community in which every one 
has equal rights. 

The foregoing is not an insignificant category : grasp 
of ideas, habits of observation, attention, alertness, 
power of concentration, self-reliance, resourcefulness, 
skill at hand work, self-government, unselfishness, respect 
for the rights of others, higher moral development, 
community spirit. What more could you ask of a boy 
whom you were about to employ than this galaxy of 
acquirements ? Ought not his arithmetic, for instance, 
to be rather better with this preparation ? 

But this is not theory. "The primary teacher," 
says the principal of kindergartens of Duluth, "says 
that all this helps the child greatly when he comes to 
read. His observing powers have been so quickened 
and trained that he distinguishes the forms of sentences 
and words readily and accurately, and the interest aroused 
in regard to all the works of nature and the occupations of 
man, give the child that desire and longing for informa- 
tion that is the source of good work everywhere." 

And she adds, very significantly: "When the child 
feels that a great gain is to be made by learning to read, 
he learns very quickly. When the adult craves informa- 
tion, he makes a way to get it." 



THE KINDERGARTEN 1 5 

It is not a development in which books and formal 
instruction have any part. But it is not the less educa- 
tion for this reason. It is the education of the per- 
ception and imagination, but especially an education 
of the emotions. 

Dr. C. B. Gilbert, formerly superintendent of schools, 
Rochester, New York, makes this impressive suggestion : 
"Many have started on a course of criminality almost 
in infancy. The children of the degraded poor, and also 
those of the degraded rich, need kindergartens while 
young. We cannot catch them too early if we are to 
make good citizens of them." 

Mr. L. H. Jones, superintendent of the state normal 
schools of Michigan, says in the same vein : "The period 
between four and six is morally a very dangerous period 
to children that are not well cared for in their homes. 
Many of the evil habits learned during this period require 
for their correction the strength of the teacher for many 
years of school life. This reason in itself is sufficient proof 
of the wisdom of placing the child during this period where 
he will not only not form bad habits, but will form good 
ones/' 

The cost of the kindergarten has been greatly exag- 
gerated. In the public schools of Massachusetts, in- 
cluding high schools, the average cost for the education 
of each pupil is $30.53. The average cost for each child 
in the public kindergartens now maintained is $18.67. 
In St. Louis, where the kindergarten is most firmly 
established as a part of the public school system, the 



I 6 BETTER SCHOOLS 

cost of the kindergarten per child is $16.12, or about 
$3 less than the cost of the grade schools. 

But if the statements made above regarding the effi- 
ciency of the kindergarten are true, and a year's time may 
be saved to the child in the elementary school, the cost 
of the kindergarten practically disappears. 

The cost of kindergartens, however, like the cost 
of all forms of education, must also be thought of from 
the standpoint of the cost it prevents. 

On "The Cost of Crime," Warren F. Spaulding, prison 
commissioner, writes: "It takes one tenth of the taxes 
to punish our offenders. From this it will be seen that the 
criminal is a very expensive citizen, and that the tax- 
payer has a pecuniary interest in the prevention and 
abolition of crime. Most of the crime-costs paid by the 
tax-payer are for the punishment of crime ; comparatively 
little is spent for prevention." 

Civic righteousness has a money value. The in- 
dividual may have it for the asking, but the community 
must pay for it. But it is better to pay for righteousness 
than for sin. 

The Century Magazine says: "Kindergartens yearly 
feed into the common schools fresh material, alive, alert, 
awake, taught to think, able in six months to do the 
work of a year in the old system, grasping numbers with 
ease and rapidity, their fingers trained to hold the 
pencil, the task of learning either writing or drawing 
half done." 

President Harper of Chicago University said that "a 



THE KINDERGARTEN 1 7 

thorough kindergarten training saves two years in the 
university career of a normal child. His powers of mind 
are developed and trained, and he goes to his work which 
opens up a new field in every study pursued." 

But let us get down to figures. The late Superintend- 
ent Soldan of St. Louis said : " In the St. Louis schools 
without kindergartens, children are admitted to the 
primary grades at six; in those with kindergartens, at 
seven. The kindergarten children ought therefore to 
be one year behind the non-kindergarten. But this is 
far from being the case. By the time the children have 
reached the fifth grade there is no longer any material 
difference in age between the two classes; and by the 
time they reach the highest grade, the kindergarten 
children are somewhat younger than those without 
kindergarten training." 

In Des Moines, Iowa, the age of kindergarten children 
in every grade is actually less than that of the remainder 
of the class by a few months, until the eighth grade is 
reached, where the difference is ten months — a school 
year. 

But there is an education for which the school cur- 
riculum does not provide, which cannot be obtained 
from books, which cannot be omitted without injury to 
the development of the child, and which cannot be 
measured by figures. No one will contend that there 
is no moral and mental development appropriate to 
infancy, and no intelligent person will claim that such 
development can be omitted with impunity. A well- 



I 8 BETTER SCHOOLS 

conducted kindergarten develops the apperceptive cen- 
ters of every power which man should possess at matu- 
rity. 

I have spoken so far of the beneficent influence of the 
kindergarten in preparing little children for their future 
work. But this is only a partial statement of the case. 
The blessings of the kindergarten gospel are not limited 
to the kindergarten itself. They have overflowed into 
the elementary school and are increasingly changing 
for the better the character of the teaching in all the 
schools above the kindergarten grade. The primary 
school has been very much influenced by kindergarten 
teaching, although still not enough. The kindergarten 
will not have accomplished its mission until the whole 
school system, high school included, is infused with its 
spirit. 

There is a notion that the kindergarten makes its in- 
fluence felt, on the primary school at least, only by means 
of the kindergarten apparatus. This is an unfortunate 
opinion. The so-called busy work of the primary 
grades has been an effective education in idleness be- 
cause some good people have persisted in thinking that 
the schools were to be benefited by forcing into them 
material, much of which is utterly inappropriate to 
the purpose of the school. This state of things has 
done much to make the teacher believe that dawdling 
and inconsequential work characterized kindergarten 
methods. 

To get at the truth, let us first remember that Froebel, 



THE KINDERGARTEN 1 9 

the apostle of the kindergarten, left us not only the 
apparatus of the kindergarten but also a body of doctrine, 
a set of principles which are so true, so inspiring, so 
vitalizing, as to constitute a priceless possession. When 
we grasp the meaning of these principles and try to 
apply them, we are at once impressed by their practical 
value no less than by their beauty. Indeed, one who 
becomes filled with their influence changes his whole 
attitude toward education. Let me illustrate. 

I am very fond of Froebel's claim that there is no true 
education where the child is not made conscious of power. 
And Froebel distinctly means power. He is to be made 
conscious of power ; he is not to be made conscious of 
failure. 

Here is surely a beautiful thought. The keyword 
is the adjective "conscious." In its broader treatment 
it means that the child is to be made conscious of his 
divine possibilities. Not only must we know his power 
but he must know it. Unless he is conscious of his 
power, there is no adequate education. A child cannot 
develop what he does not know that he possesses. But 
too frequently it is not power that is emphasized by the 
teacher, but failure. In the marking of a language paper, 
for example, is not the emphasis placed on the errors? 
But why not also on the successes ? Which will stimulate 
a boy more vitally, to know that he can do a thing or to 
know that he cannot do it? Do we like to do things 
we succeed in doing or those we fail in doing? Is the 
perpetual emphasis on error likely to make a boy so 



20 BETTER SCHOOLS 

believe in himself that he will resolve to conquer all 
obstacles? In morals the truth shines clearly. If a 
child resists a dozen temptations to do wrong and fails 
at the thirteenth, we punish him for that failure. That 
is where the emphasis is placed. His successful efforts 
to resist temptation count for nothing; but there is where 
the emphasis belongs, according to Froebel. With us his 
failure is all that counts. Surely our duty is to make 
him conscious of his power when he succeeds. He will 
try the harder next time. This does not eliminate pun- 
ishment, but it eliminates most of the conditions that 
make punishment necessary. So it is with the curricu- 
lum. The earnest, honest effort is the important fact, 
for herein lies the consciousness of power ; the error is the 
subordinate matter. The subject is a fascinating one. 
It is a subject which teachers have studied only in its 
elements. That the vital principle involved dominates 
our educational practice is far from the truth. When it 
does, not only will our methods of teaching be revised, 
but our marking systems will not compare child with 
child, for the premium will be based on the only possible 
comparison, that of the child with himself. In that happy 
day our merit lists will not exalt one child and humiliate 
another, and the u cum laude" on the high school com- 
mencement program will disappear with all other in- 
genious contrivances for emphasizing partial defeat. 
We shall then learn that all methods which make a child 
believe he cannot achieve are vicious. 

Here are no blocks or zephyr or other occupation 



THE KINDERGARTEN 21 

materials, but every one must admit that we are in the 
presence of a principle that goes to the very basis of child 
training, whether at home or in school, and at all ages. 
In the kindergarten the principle is described as self- 
revelation. 

Let us look at another Froebelian principle. Translated 
into ordinary speech, it expresses the demand that all 
methods should be based upon data afforded by the 
children themselves. It would seem that when children 
in large numbers, here, there, everywhere, resist a 
subject or method, that subject or method is wrong at 
that stage of their progress. And, conversely, when the 
children receive a subject or phase of a subject gladly, 
it would seem that that subject or phase of the subject 
is clearly indicated as right. Indeed, one might deduce 
a law regarding the appropriateness of subjects, or the 
time and method of their introduction, to be known as 
the law of the least resistance. Now what are the facts ? 

How long did it take us to learn that arithmetic has 
no place in the earlier grades ? For years and years the 
children said so. They resisted the subject, learned it 
with the greatest difficulty, and forgot it with the great- 
est facility; their acquirements were insignificant, and 
if the subject was omitted in the first grade the children 
were as far along at the beginning of the third grade as 
if the subject had been taken for two years. From a 
Froebelian point of view this amounts to proof, and the 
educational world is gradually accepting the only pos- 
sible conclusion. Why were we so slow ? Merely because 



22 BETTER SCHOOLS 

we evolved the appropriateness of arithmetic from our 
heads and not from the facts of childhood. 

Conversely, why have we been so slow in learning 
that little children are the best language students in the 
world, that early childhood is the golden time for lan- 
guage? And specifically, how slow we are in learning 
that the child's speech is oral speech and that written 
speech is an exotic. In oral speech the child is fluent and 
idiomatic, and reveals himself. In written speech he 
is artificial and clumsy, and does not reveal himself. 
He comes to school with plenty of language ; we put a 
pencil in his hand and freeze him up. The written speech 
will develop, but not yet, and very slowly. It is a mis- 
fortune and an error that we do not derive our courses of 
study from children, but from our own self-consciousness. 
But Froebel says the child must be our chief study. It 
would seem that to many superintendents, in preparing 
courses of study, it has never occurred that there are 
children in the world who could be seen if it were thought 
that that were really necessary. 

What but a perverse or ignorant disregard of FroebePs 
law, a disregard of the richest field of data, the children 
themselves, will explain the vagaries of nature study ? 
Any one who will read the curricula on this subject for 
the last twenty years will come to the conclusion that for 
the most part the facts of childhood, children's loves and 
tendencies, have been the last thing thought of. Slowly, 
we are tending in the right direction, but not from any 
consciousness that the children must determine the course 



THE KINDERGARTEN 23 

of study, which is the Froebelian law. To give an ex- 
ample, and, at the same time, be specific, the love of chil- 
dren for living things has been ignored or catered to ac- 
cidentally in the primary and lower grammar grades, and 
is now very slowly receiving systematic consideration. 

These instructions might stretch on indefinitely. Let 
any one apply just this one law to our schools and trace 
the long line of violations in courses of study, in the time 
at which subjects are presented and in the special method 
of presentation. One need not stop at the primary school. 
He may pursue his investigation through the grammar 
school and the high school. Indeed, he will find the high 
school a very Golconda of false methods from the point 
of view under consideration. Suppose we were to open 
our eyes to the facts of boyhood and girlhood and humbly 
be guided by them, and base our teaching and courses of 
study upon them, abandoning egotism and tradition. A 
genuine revival in teaching would come to pass. That is 
the gospel of the kindergarten. 

Finally : let us think of another Froebelian law — that 
of self-activity. I have discussed this before. I desire 
at this time only to link the idea with the kindergarten 
law. The meaning of the law is easy to understand. 
It is the right of the pupil that no one shall tell him his 
mistakes unless he does not know that they are mistakes. 
Every time a teacher shows a child his error in anything, 
he violates the law of self -activity and retards his edu- 
cation. 

The self-activity of the child is, at the beginning, of the 



24 BETTER SCHOOLS 

most modest kind. The fact that he goes on day after 
day doing things that he knows are wrong indicates how 
little real effort he is putting forth. But why not demand 
the full quota of his self-activity, as indicated above ! 
Why should not the child be feeble ? Why should not the 
results be inconsequential? The teacher assists when 
there should be no assistance, he explains when there 
should be no explanation. He interferes with the child's 
right to do things himself, he meddles, and this he does 
all the time and in a systematic manner as if with a settled 
theory as to its propriety. When the malign practice 
based on this theory is persisted in year after year, the 
tendency is to necrosis of the will. Some high schools 
make one think that this disease has actually set in. 

And the law holds good in the learning of things as 
well as in their practice or drill. No teacher has the 
right to help a boy to understand an application of per- 
centage that he can understand without help. It is a 
wrong done to the boy. He is defrauded of the right to 
exert his own powers, through which exertion alone, in 
Froebel's opinion, he can be educated. It is surprising 
how much even the very little children of the first grade 
do for themselves. We teach them reading, of course, 
but if in addition to the formal teaching we give the 
child unlimited facilities for interesting and appropriate 
silent reading, put him in a bath, so to speak, of silent 
reading, he will soon demonstrate how unnecessary much 
of our teaching is, and if unnecessary, then, of course, 
how injurious. The formal teaching will go on, but it 



THE KINDERGARTEN 25 

will rapidly change its character, for the children have 
become partners in the business. This lesson is learned 
by few teachers. The formal reading lesson appears in 
the upper grades as a method of teaching reading. 
Indeed, we are forever teaching reading. We seem 
never to be able to say we have taught it. The con- 
ferring of the power to read from the printed page should 
have been completed in the lower grades. The oral 
reading lesson has its function in the upper grades, but 
that function is not to teach children how to read. 

The application of this idea to moral education opens 
up a fascinating field of thought, but we can only hint at 
it here. Briefly, if by discipline we make it impossible 
to do wrong, we at the same time make choice impossible. 
Activity implies resistance. If there is no possibility 
of resistance (that is, if it is impossible to do wrong) 
there is no exercise, and if there is no exercise there is no 
growth. There must be choice, and choice means self- 
activity. 

Here again, the widest field for thought is opened up. 
Eliminate the violation of the law of self-activity and the 
public schools would not know themselves. But then 
we would be doing only what every true kindergartner 
proposes to herself. The child leaves the kindergarten, 
where self-activity is always predicted of him. He 
goes into the grades, where, to a very large extent, self- 
activity is an unknown quantity, and where it is likely 
to be accidental when it does enter. 

All education is continuous. The artificial terms 



26 BETTER SCHOOLS 

which we apply to distinguish various stages of progress 
in the child's development should not denote different 
things but different phases of the same thing. The 
standard for all education, by whatever artificial des- 
ignation we describe any of its phases, is the im- 
mutable law of child development. 

When reduced to its simplest statement, this is what 
the kindergarten stands for, — the immutable, the divine 
law of child development. Froebel's famous precept is, 
"Come, let us live with the children." This does not 
mean the babies only ; it means the boy, the youth, the 
maiden, the high school student, as well. It is the 
ultimate principle of education. Froebel says: "The 
object of education is the realization of a faithful, 
pure, inviolate and hence holy life." I am enamoured 
of his definition of education. He says it is the develop- 
ment of the divine unity in every child. 



CHAPTER III 

Continuity between the Kindergarten and the 
Elementary School 

In passing from the kindergarten to the primary school 
there is a break. Do what you will to soften the change, 
to modify the break, it still remains a break. Three general 
methods of dealing with the difficulty have been employed : 
(i) To provide a connecting class to take the child out 
of his kindergarten habits and introduce him to those 
of the primary school; in the words of some teachers, 
"To make him over." (2) To modify the kindergarten 
so as to make it more nearly resemble the primary school. 
(3) To modify the primary school so as to make it more 
nearly resemble the kindergarten. There is only one 
effective way to continue the vital development of the 
child through his whole school course. All teachers in 
primary, grammar, and high schools should be trained in 
the fundamental principles of Froebel. 

Now if anything is clear in the Froebelian doctrine 
it is this, that there are no breaks in human develop- 
ment and should be none in education. The human being 
shows wide variations when we compare him with him- 
self at different periods of his life, but these changes 
always take place gradually. This is Froebel's language : 

27 



28 BETTER SCHOOLS 

" Sharp limits and definite subdivisions within the con- 
tinuous series of the years of development, withdrawing 
from attention the permanent continuity, the living 
connection, the inner living essence, are therefore highly 
pernicious, and even destructive in their influence. " 
And the truth is not only Froebelian, it is self-evident, it is 
common sense. 

It seems, therefore, that the fact of the break just 
noted is not only un-Froebelian, it is unpsychological, 
it is not common sense. It indicates that we have 
abandoned the simple principles of Froebel, of psychology 
even, and have intruded ourselves into the problem. We 
have introduced an artificial consideration somewhere, 
or we should not have this glaring absurdity in our school 
system staring us in the face. 

For, let us note, we are not to "make the child over" ; 
that is precisely what we must not do. In succeeding 
in making the child over we do him an injury even if he 
were wrong before, for Nature does not make things 
right in that way. The suspicion might arise in such 
cases whether it is not the teacher who needs to be made 
over. 

Let us note further, in view of this thought of contin- 
uous development, that the primary school is not to 
approximate the kindergarten. Who had a right to 
make the kindergarten a standard? It would be a 
standard, by the way, exceedingly hard to define in 
the divergent practical aspects it now presents to the 
educational world. And still further, it is equally 



THE KINDERGARTEN AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 29 

illogical to speak of approximating the kindergarten to 
the primary school. 

There is no kindergarten, there is no primary school 
in any such sense as the terms are understood in such a 
discussion. There is but one fact that is real, and that 
is development. The artificial terms which we apply 
to distinguish various stages of progress in this develop- 
ment should not denote different things but different 
phases of the same thing. But the terms kindergarten 
and primary school imply a sharp distinction, a sharper 
distinction, indeed, than that between the first and second 
grades of the primary school. This is not the only place 
in the school course in which, as a result of the use of 
terms, a sharp dividing line is drawn where no such line 
should be. A striking example is to be found in the atti- 
tude of high school teachers toward grammar school boys 
upon their entrance into the high school. The friction 
that suddenly develops at this point and the failure of the 
entering students both as regards discipline and scholar- 
ship are well known to teachers. The explanation is 
simple. The student has not changed his identity in 
entering the high school, but the high school teacher 
thinks he has just because he has been given a new name. 

Let us start, then, with this proposition, that to 
standardize an artificial thing as a basis of comparison 
with another artificial thing is unpedagogical. This 
postulate having been grasped, the logical course becomes 
very clear and simple. The standard for all education, 
by whatever artificial designation we describe any of its 



,}0 BETTER SCHOOLS 

phases, is the immutable law of child development. The 
kindergarten is logically but an expression of this law 
for one period of school life and the primary school, 
grammar school, high school, and college, expressions for 
other periods; We have claimed far too little for the 
Froebelian doctrine when we have timidly advocated its 
application to the primary school. It is not only appli- 
cable fo the whole of education; it is its inexorable law. 
In the following discussion, no attempt, t herefore, will be 
made to confine Froebelian thought to primary education. 

Let us assume that the law of child development is 
conveyed with reasonable adequacy in the Froebelian phi- 
losophy. This assumption is near enough the truth — 
indeed, il is wonderfully near the truth. What are the 
lessons to be derived concerning the conduct of the kin- 
dergarten and the subsequent education of the child? 

Let us consider first the post-kindergarten period, the 
period of tin- so-called grades. Usually a most optimistic 
state of mind is evident. The influence of the kinder- 
garten on the primary school has been taken for granted, 
and the spirit of the primary school has been shown to 
have changed for the better along the lines of Froe- 
belian thought. Besides this, the kindergarten material 
has entered the primary schools. The writer is far 
from entering into full participation with this optimism. 
One may gratefully and gladly concede that such a 
change in spirit is evident, but he must repress his trans- 
ports when he begins to realize to how limited an extent 
the change has taken place. The superintendent who 



THE KINDERGARTEN AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 31 

longs for the Froebel millennium must sadly admit that 
many a primary teacher has received but little of the divine 
fire, and that in the cases of many more the new spirit 
is at best a modifying influence and by no means a 
dominating one. In the grammar schools the picture is 
darker, and in the high school almost invisible. Again, 
and this is the important consideration, the influence 
which has brought about the happier condition is, so far 
as the teacher is concerned, not consciously that of the 
kindergarten. It may be, and to some extent doubtless 
is, indirectly that of the kindergarten, but the teacher 
who is affected by it does not know it. This is the same 
thing as to say that the vitalizing Froebelian thought 
which has done so much for the kindergartner has done 
little for the primary teacher, and that little in a round- 
about way. The real thing is clearly seen when the 
kindergarten-trained teacher enters the primary or gram- 
mar school. No greater blessing has come to the schools 
in these later years than the entrance of the kinder 
garten- trained teacher into the grades. But often even 
she sees but dimly the beauty of the gospel she has 
learned, except as it is revealed ]]\ orthodox kinder- 
garten lines of expression. Nevertheless, the possibili- 
ties of such young women under a sympathetic train- 
ing are most hopeful. They make our best primary 
teachers. It is a question, however, whether the in- 
troduction of the kindergarten material into the primary 
schools has not been productive of as much harm as good. 
These materials have no value in themselves. They re- 



32 BETTER SCHOOLS 

ceive a value in the kindergarten because they furnish a 
medium for the expression of a Froebelian thought. But 
to the primary teacher they have no such value, and 
to the kindergartner, acting as a primary teacher, they 
are likely to lose their meaning when divorced from their 
standard use. Such materials have become the occasion 
of a frightful waste of time, as all the materials must that 
are used without a comprehension of their meaning. In 
many cases they are relegated to the time allotted to 
the out-and-out idling known as "busy work." 

It can never be said that the principles of Froebel are 
acting on the school until they act directly on the teacher. 
And it must further be kept in mind that kinder- 
garten materials and kindergarten methods have 
nothing whatever to do with the matter. The methods 
and materials will be determined by the facts of the 
case. It by no means follows that because the blocks 
and tablets and zephyr furnish an adequate means of 
expressing a Froebelian principle at the sub-primary or 
so-called kindergarten age, the same material is its ade- 
quate expression in the fourth or seventh grade. The 
method and the material vary, the material may even 
disappear, but the Froebelian principle is evermore reg- 
nant. The logical mode of procedure would seem to be : 
given a principle, what is the proper method or medium 
for its expression at this or that point in the child's 
progress ? If we search for the violations of this obvious 
principle in our teachings, their grossness, importance, 
and frequency will be startling. 



THE KINDERGARTEN AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 33 

As a further illustration of this broad treatment of the 
elementary school from a Froebelian point of view, let us 
think of another Froebelian law — that of self-activity. 
In the usual discussions of this law we seem to be unable 
to see in it anything but manual training. But its appli- 
cation throughout the course of study should be univer- 
sal, and its violations are so numerous and disastrous as 
to suggest the suspicion that the principle enters only to 
the most trifling extent into school administration. 

The pupil reaches the upper grades of the grammar 
school and the high school, it is claimed, weak in the 
technique of writing, and feeble as regards thought. 
In passing, why should his thought not be feeble ? So 
much mental effort must be expended on form that he has 
none left for thought. If technique could ever become 
automatic, his whole effort could go out to the thought. 
But technique becomes automatic very slowly, under 
present conditions, and never reaches any high standard 
unless, indeed, it becomes automatically wrong. That 
is a result that may be attained with surprising rapidity. 

One specific illustration of the great law of self-revela- 
tion must suffice for this part of the discussion. There 
is an interesting statement in Froebel's discussion of 
the teaching of language, to the effect that, through read- 
ing, man attains personality. The substance of the dis- 
cussion is that through reading the soul is raised into self- 
consciousness. But who can watch a reading lesson 
in most primary grades and believe that through it the 
child's soul is attaining self -consciousness ? The monoto- 

D 



34 BETTER SCHOOLS 

nous expression, the apathetic looks of the children, 
the fitful attention and feeble interest, all indicate what is 
being attained, — a slowly developing power to translate 
the characters in the book into speech. But the vital 
fact of reading as an art whereby the child discovers him- 
self is practically, if not absolutely, absent. The teacher 
looks for it in a hopeless way or not at all. The 
child must discover his personality, not through words, 
nor even through the meanings of words, but through the 
thought of the story. Therefore the story is the prin- 
cipal aim of the teaching, the power of word recogni- 
tion the subordinate aim, for the former is the reason 
for desiring the latter. There is many a teacher who 
would stare if he were advised to tell or read the story 
frequently before developing the words. 

This perfunctory treatment of reading in the earlier 
grades is continued in the later grades in a most absurd 
manner and is paralleled in the other subjects of the 
course. The Froebelian idea is that the study is of 
value, not in itself, but in view of its reaction on the 
divine essence. But much of the teaching that we see 
places the emphasis on the subject in innocent oblivion 
to the existence of any such thing as a reaction. How 
else is the dominance of the fetish known as arithmetic 
to be explained ? Here matters are frequently taught, not 
because of their reaction or even in view of their subse- 
quent usefulness, but just because they always have been 
taught. For example, the teacher spends considerable 
time in teaching, drilling, and reviewing a subject known 



THE KINDERGARTEN AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 35 

as " Least Common Multiple/' with the full knowledge 
that he has never used the process in his life, except to 
teach it, and that the pupil never will either. It is merely 
a matter of tradition. 

Here we are face to face with the great parting of the 
ways. Froebel says the fundamental consideration is the 
child, his personality. All else is to be considered in view 
of its reaction on this divine entity. The opposing view 
holds : there are subjects to be taught. The child is 
a convenient thing to teach them to. You cannot teach 
geography without children. Therefore we must have 
children in the schools, but the geography is the im- 
portant fact and the child must accommodate himself 
to it. Included between these two extreme views range 
the teachers of the country, the mass practically adhering 
to the un-Froebelian view. Once more, let us search our 
practice. Let us bow to the Froebelian law of self- 
revelation. Let us make the child the starting-point for 
our courses of study and our methods. When we do 
that our schools will be revolutionized and the Froebelian 
thought will be incarnated in our children. 

It is necessary to deal thus frankly with the post- 
kindergarten section of our school system. It is neces- 
sary to show that the Froebelian doctrine, not the 
kindergarten, is the standard. It is necessary to show, 
also, that the change in courses of study, in methods of 
teaching, and in every detail of school administration 
that must and will come from an honest effort to realize 
the Froebelian thought, is startling. 



36 BETTER SCHOOLS 

But what of the kindergarten itself ? Are all kinder- 
gartners really true to Froebel ? Do not some of them 
exalt the letter above the spirit? Froebel made two 
bequests. First, he bequeathed us a body of doctrine 
which is so true, so inspiring, so vitalizing, that it is a 
priceless possession. Modern psychology has modified 
some of this doctrine. That was to be expected, and the 
contributions of psychology should be gratefully acknowl- 
edged. Surely a man like Froebel, who looked at truth 
with such open eyes, must have himself expected that 
this would happen. But modern psychology has also 
given its indorsement to most of FroebePs teachings, to 
all indeed that we hold dear. 

Second, Froebel bequeathed us a series of directions 
to enable us to concrete his principles. Most of these 
relate to the sub-primary period of instruction, the so- 
called kindergarten period. A few relate to the conduct 
of subjects in later grades. It was to be expected that 
eventually two schools of kindergarten practice would 
develop, the one emphasizing the Froebelian principles, 
the other the Froebelian practice. 

Is it not fair to press upon the attention of kindergart- 
ners the same mode of thinking which we have demanded 
from the Froebelian standpoint in the foregoing treat- 
ment of the so-called grades ? When a kindergartner in- 
sists on the use of a series of gifts and occupations 
just because they were prescribed by Froebel, or any one 
else, how does she differ from a primary teacher who per- 
sists in using methods that also have the sanction 



THE KINDERGARTEN AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 37 

of many honored names in the past? If the kinder- 
gartner claims that she is using the materials because 
they express the Froebelian principles, then she must 
in all fairness demand that we follow throughout the 
post-kindergarten course the methods of teaching draw- 
ing prescribed by Froebel. In the present development 
of art study in the schools, this would be the reductio ad 
absurdum. Indeed, from this point of view it must be 
admitted that the primary school has shown more open- 
ness of mind than some of the champions of the kinder- 
garten. Are we not indeed violating the fundamental 
demand of Froebel himself in exalting the practice above 
the principle? Listen: "For the living thought, the 
eternal divine principle, as such demands and requires 
free self-activity and self-determination on the part of 
man." Why should this self-determination be granted 
to the child and be withheld from the teacher ? Is not its 
application universal ? 

The fealty of the kindergartner to Froebel is beautiful ; 
and she has fought so many fights in his behalf that every 
fact of the kindergarten has become dear to her. Yet 
the great fact remains that if all education is to fuse 
into one, the kindergartner must do as she expects the 
primary teacher to do, sit at the feet of the children 
and ask them what is right. They know and they only. 
They do not know that they know, but they know, 
and they will tell us if we know how to ask and are not 
too proud to ask. No method of embodying Froebel's 
thought, no matter how valuable, can stand a moment 



38 HKITKR SCHOOLS 

after we have discovered a better. The principle of self- 
activity is eternal ; the third gift is a possible expression, 
It was FroebeTs expression, but after all the important 
Consideration is the sell" activity and not the third gift. 
1( must be expressed in a thousand ways in the primary 
and grammar and high school grades. Why arc not 
many ways possible in the kindergarten? 

It seems to the writer that the truth of the postulate 
laid down early in this article is unavoidable: that all 
education is one and that breaks are illogical. If this 
he true, unity so far as the Froebelian doctrine is con- 
cerned must come from an absolutely honest and unflinch- 
ing application of the Froebelian laws to all school life, 

and this means (he kindergarten as well as the primary 

or grammar school. When that consummation is reached 

the kindergarten as a distinct institution will have passed 
away, or rather it will have absorbed within itself the 
whole o!" education. That will be the day of its trans- 
figuration. The day is hastening. And when one thinks 
Of the idea of the divine purpose that runs all through 
the Froebelian writings, surely it is not irreverent to 
say of that day, that "then the whole earth shall be 
tilled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters 
cover the sea." 



CHAPTER IV 

Gumption 

It is related of a learned judge that he once praised 
a retiring witness in the following words: "You are 
entitled to great credit, sir. You must have taken 
infinite pains with yourself. No man could naturally 
be so stupid.' ' 

The English dictionary admits the word "gumption" 
and classifies it as colloquial. It is therefore a respectable 
word and it certainly has a respectable origin if any one 
cares to look it up. Like most homely words it gives 
the feeling of meaning just what you want a word to 
mean and to mean nothing else. The dictionary defini- 
tions are "capacity, shrewdness," but these do not 
satisfy. Let us come back to gumption. 

If one should demonstrate that the schools (including the 
high schools) of America are turning out a mass of graduates 
lamentably deficient in gumption, he would raise ques- 
tions of the most alarming character. For of what 
value is it to teach ever so much arithmetic if the 
boy has not the common sense to make use of it ? The 
purpose of the school is not to put a child in possession 
of this fact or of any number of facts. It is to develop 
the personality so that it shall be of the greatest possible 
service to him. No two children bring the same endow- 
ments into this world. But whatever his endowment, 

39 



40 BETTER SCHOOLS 

a child has the right to demand of his education that it 
shall put within his reach all the prosperity, happiness, 
and usefulness that the endowment will yield. 

In "A Message to Garcia," Elbert Hubbard says: — 

"No man has endeavored to carry out an enterprise 
where many hands were needed, but has been well-nigh 
appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man — 
the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing 
and do it. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, 
dowdy indifference, and half-hearted work seemed the 
rule; and no man succeeds unless by hook or crook or 
threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or 
mayhap, God in his goodness performs a miracle and 
sends him an angel of light for an assistant. This 
incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, 
this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully 
catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure socialism 
so far into the future." 

Fifty years ago the writer of "Artificial Production 
of Stupidity in School" said of English education: " With 
the exception of being perhaps able to read with labor, 
and to write with difficulty, the pupils must not be 
expected, six months after leaving school, to possess 
any traces of their 'education' beyond an invigorated 
sensorium and a stunted intelligence." 

Although there have been many discoveries in educa- 
tion in fifty years, nevertheless, if these witnesses are to 
be trusted, the product of the system continues mo- 
notonously similar. 



GUMPTION 41 

Let us face a very disagreeable fact. No one who 
thoughtfully considers the data offered by thousands of 
schoolrooms can come to any other conclusion than 
that our practice, at least, is fundamentally wrong. The 
striking characteristic of the schoolboy is his attitude 
toward his work ; an attitude of apathy, of unwillingness, 
and apparent inability to grapple with a difficulty. 

To an extent that would be alarming if we had not 
grown so accustomed to it, it may be said that the pupil 
does not care. He goes to school because he is sent; 
personally, too often he would prefer not to go. In school 
he does the things he is told to do. He does them 
sometimes well, often indifferently, sometimes very badly. 
He does not see their importance; it never occurs to him 
to raise the question of their importance. Sometimes 
he gets interested in the thing he happens to be doing, 
but the interest is. passing and, too often, feeble. He 
makes blunders in writing English not because he does 
not know how to write correctly but because he has 
no defined interest in trying to write correctly. It is 
not necessary to assume that he desires to make these 
errors ; he has no desire of any kind in connection with the 
matter. Place him in the baseball field and he is alert. 
His whole being is given to the game. But in his 
language or arithmetic lesson he is inert. He will bring 
in twenty-six dollars as the price of a pound of butter 
with complacency. If it suits the teacher or the 
answer in the book, it suits him. The incident for 
him is closed. A flashlight is thrown on this state of 



42 BETTER SCHOOLS 

things in a question of one of her Majesty's inspectors, 
in the book from which I have already quoted. With 
admirable naivete he italicizes this question: "To 
what purpose in after life is a boy taught, if the inter- 
vention of a school vacation is to be a sufficient excuse 
for entirely forgetting his instruction ? " 

Associated with this state of things is the absence of 
that valuable, if homely, quality of gumption. It is 
really part and parcel of the same trouble. The boy 
does not bring to his work the wit he has. He makes 
little effort to comprehend a situation, and of course he 
does not comprehend it. 

The most melancholy fact concerning this whole mat- 
ter is that the boy grows worse throughout the course. 
Necessarily, it cannot be claimed that this is the case 
with every child in our American schools, but it describes 
a condition so general that one could blunder in on its 
realization almost anywhere and would really have to try 
to avoid it. 

Now there is no education without self-activity. What 
we do for the child counts but little in comparison with 
what he does for himself. To send a child out furnished 
with facts and with such a training in relation to the 
duties of life as we have described ; to send out a child 
with no serious purpose up to the time he enters the world 
of business, is to doom him to mediocrity or worse. 
Sometimes a boy is stimulated by the excitements of the 
real whirling world of business, but in general it is prob- 
able that the mind has acquired a permanent set; he 



GUMPTION 43 

has had no training in facing problems, and he must give 
way to the man who has. 

I have often desired to try this experiment. Take a 
class of boys and for one week pay each boy ten cents 
for every example he worked correctly within a given 
time. For every example that was wrong not only 
fail to pay this bounty but also deduct ten cents from 
his earnings. Treat all the errors in his compositions 
in the same way. I have an impression that there 
would be more arithmetic and language taught that 
week than during any previous week of those boys' 
school lives. 

But this hypothetical case brings us directly to the 
pupil's solution of the problem by suggesting a very 
simple explanation of the boy's apathetic attitude. He 
thinks the effort is worth while for the money but is 
not worth while for the considerations we usually offer. 
He will " deliver the goods " if he sees any profit in the 
transaction. The theory often receives confirmation in 
the classroom in ways that are mysterious to the adult. 
Good work can sometimes be obtained by a promise 
to dismiss a half hour early all who offer the good work. 
A match will bring out better work than a recitation; 
there is the sport element here. The old device of 
" going up head" is based on the same principle. All 
this means that there are considerations that the pupil 
thinks worth while and others that he thinks are not 
worth while. Whenever a teacher uses the worth-while 
consideration he gets effort from those who think it is 



44 BETTER SCHOOLS 

worth while, even though the motive which the boy thinks 
worth while is a poor one. 

But what are the motives which the school generally 
offers ? I remember the comment of a wise superintend- 
ent on the employment of early dismission as a motive : 
"That," said he, "is wrong in principle. You hold up to 
the pupil that to avoid the opportunity for education is 
a good thing, whereas you know it is a bad thing. Now, if 
you should say, ' Every one who does good work during 
the day may stay and continue his education another 
half hour with me,' you would be logical." I confess 
I cannot see the flaw in this reasoning, but every teacher 
knows how it would work. At least every teacher thinks 
he knows. But the cases of pupils who have actually 
asked the privilege of working overtime in manual 
training are so numerous that perhaps, after all, we do 
not know. And yet I never knew a child to ask per- 
mission to stay after school that he might continue his 
parsing. 

Let us look at the inducements we offer and the esti- 
mates of children thereon. First, the value of educa- 
tion itself. Too vague; value not clear; too far off 
anyway. Second, success in the world as a result of 
education. Doubtful ; cannot see how ; at any rate the 
thing is pretty far off and no use of thinking of it for some 
time yet. Third, approval of teacher. Effective with 
some, but with most, though more or less desirable, yet 
on the whole not worth the trouble. Fourth, marks, 
ratings. Rather better than the preceding, indeed 



GUMPTION 45 

worthy of consideration now and then but not enough to 
warrant one in making himself uncomfortable. Fifth, 
rewards, prizes. Rather effective with some, but falling 
short of a first-class stimulant; falling far short, for 
example, of a half dollar for a good week's work. Finally, 
promotion, graduation. Tolerably effective during May 
and June. 

There are certain standards by which the child un- 
consciously tests the inducements that are presented to 
him. First, the thing offered must be within his compre- 
hension ; second, it must appeal to his views of what is 
desirable ; third, the realization must be speedy ; fourth, 
it must affect his material comfort ; fifth, it must have 
to do with the living world. 

The public has demanded that we teach things rather 
than boys. The superintendent writes a course of 
study in which he introduces these things and the board 
of education approves the superintendent's work and 
adds official indorsement. All that is now needed is to 
teach the "things" faithfully and carefully and the end 
must be blessed. Knowledge is poured forth like water. 
"Let him that is athirst come and drink." And to- 
gether we all constitute "The Society for the Confusion 
of Useless Knowledge." 

For alas ! the important element is not the thing but 
the boy. If the boy is aroused in school to the resolute 
endeavor which he shows in his play, the wisdom of the 
teacher and the course of study have borne their choicest 
fruit. If he is not thus aroused, no system of teaching 



46 BETTER SCHOOLS 

facts, however orthodox, will ever lead him into the reali- 
zation of his rightful heritage. 

My protest is against the stunting of the intelligence, 
the atrophy of the mental life, the artificial production 
of stupidity. These things are being done on a large 
scale. There must be a remedy. 

A Harvard student was being shaved by a Boston 
barber at a time when Harvard was having a series of 
misfortunes in the athletic field. It is said that the 
barber expressed himself to the student thus: "What 
is the matter with your college? You can't play base- 
ball, you can't play football, you can't row. What good 
is your college anyway ? All you can do over there is to 
get an education." 

How has such a standard of educational value been 
established so widely? The sum of the matter is this, 
the child is not interested, his real being is not awakened, 
and he emerges from school in an undeveloped state, 
with no adequate comprehension of himself or of the 
world he is to enter. He has lived in an artificial world 
in school ; the real world has been concealed from him. 
His opinion as to the relative importance of things 
does not differ materially from that of the barber and, 
indeed, it is probable that the Harvard student was also 
in substantial accord with the barber. 

If the barber placed baseball above education, it is 
because he could see something worth while in baseball, 
but his views on the advantage of an education were 
hazy. With the student exactly the same state of 



GUMPTION 47 

mind generally exists. When we can make him really 
believe in an education as he does in baseball, he will 
probably hold the same attitude toward education as 
he does toward baseball. 

But before this can come to pass, our educational 
scheme must conform to his unconsciously applied tests 
of desirability. Let me repeat them: First, the thing 
offered must be within his comprehension; second, it 
must appeal to his views of what is desirable ; third, the 
realization must be speedy; fourth it must affect his 
material comfort ; fifth it must have to do with the living 
world. 

I desire to concentrate attention on the last considera- 
tion, the child's relation to the living world. The subject 
of course is not so simple as to be settled by one consid- 
eration. On the contrary, it is very intricate. But the 
relating of the child to the real world goes down deep 
into the problem and, besides, is the real explanation 
of the necessity of those studies of the course whose im- 
portance is but little understood by the public, or, indeed, 
by the teacher himself. 

The moment one really becomes clearly conscious of 
this characteristic of childhood, this innate tendency of a 
child to relate himself to the world in which he finds 
himself, the whole question of child- training takes on a 
new aspect. The fact itself cannot be doubted. When 
the infant imitates what his elders do he is seeking to 
adjust himself to the outside world, for his elders consti- 
tute his world. When a small boy smokes a cigarette, he 



48 BETTER SCHOOLS 

does not do it principally because he wants the cigarette, 
but because it is a large thing to do. The grown-ups do 
it in the street. He seeks to come into accord with the 
world. He takes a deep interest in the elections. He 
does not understand them. It is sufficient for him that 
they are interests of the big world. He yearns to go to 
work not because he loves to work but because the world 
fascinates him. 

It does not follow that he is fond of the world's work, 
or that if he were really in the world he would not 
quickly weary of the part of the world in which he found 
himself. But this does not set aside the main fact. It 
is true that the boy does not love monotony, nor drudgery, 
or hard work, but he loves the world ; its interests make 
their appeal just the same. 

Now, if the school can be so managed and conducted 
that the child will really believe it is a part of what he 
understands by the world, it may receive from him all 
that appreciation with which he regards the affairs of the 
world. Let us try to apply this theory. A new phrase 
has become current. It is not really new; it is only the 
currency that is new. The phrase is " vocational educa- 
tion." All education that directly tends to prepare the 
child for his work in the world is vocational. It may be 
industrial, commercial, agricultural, professional. The 
very term vocational makes an appeal to a living interest. 
Let us think of vocational training in the light of the 
thought we are considering, the tendency of the child to 
relate himself to the real world. 



GUMPTION 49 

Here indeed is where the industrial idea makes its 
appeal. It is easy to illustrate. Why do we spend weeks 
in teaching the arithmetic of the laying of carpets, and 
more weeks in the plastering of walls ? Most children are 
not going to lay carpets for a living. It is not a par- 
ticularly fascinating subject to a child's mind. We must 
teach area, and the carpet business, within limitations, 
has it place. But the printer around the corner, whose 
office the boy knows, is going to print some programs 
for the school How large is the paper from which he 
cuts ? How many programs from a sheet ? How many 
sheets for a thousand programs ? A supposititious pro- 
gram will not do. The program in the examples in the 
book will not do. It must be the very program that this 

school is to have printed at Mr. 's printing office. 

The industrial idea immediately enters. Before the class 
is through with the job they know a great deal about 
printing, and what is best of all, the work is connected 
with life. 

Again, the exercise paper in school is given out. What 
are its dimensions? In what sort of a package does 
it come ? Who supplies it ? Where did he get it ? We 
go back to the paper factory and the paper as it came 
in a roll. How wide was the roll ? Where was it cut ? 
How many pieces to a pound? How much does our 
package weigh? What are the freight charges for 
transportation from the factory? Paper manufacture 
thus enters the school from the great living, striving 
business world. 



50 BETTER SCHOOLS 

One more illustration in arithmetic. They are repay- 
ing a street near the school. How wide is the street? 
(Actual measurement by pupils.) Who has the contract ? 
Price per square yard? Why per square yard? How 
much for the city block nearest the school, etc. ? 

Turning to geography, we visit a White Star steamer. 
What does she carry ? Where is it from, and from whose 
factories? Where does this engine go? To what city, 
what concern ? What is the ocean freight ? What was 
the railroad freight and the cartage to get it to the ship ? 

In all this there must be field work, actual inquiry. 
But the work is no longer a series of supposed cases in 
the arithmetic or geography, however reasonable. The 
arithmetic may well give the suggestions to the teacher, 
but they must be worked out in the pupil's own neighbor- 
hood and become a part of his actual experience. 

It is clear to me that the curriculum may be easily 
manipulated so as to introduce the industrial and world 
flavor. But it is also clear, that because this industrial 
flavor does not enter, the work of the school drags and 
apathy is in the ascendant. Why should it not be so? 
The child sees little connection between the school- 
room and the outside world. Huckleberry Finn was 
much interested in the story of David killing Goliath 
until he found that David was dead. Then his interest 
immediately ceased, for he "had no use for dead folks." 
The child in school is evidently in the midst of dead 
things ; at any rate that is his attitude. It is very easy 
to place him among the living. 



GUMPTION 51 

Such teaching as I am advocating has been advocated 
for a long time and has been actually carried out by a few 
advanced teachers, but it is lamentably true that the idea 
finds but few followers among the rank and file of teachers. 
It sums up the argument for industrial education, an edu- 
cation which is closely related to actual life. You cannot 
put a ten-year-old boy in a shop school, but you can bring 
him into close touch with the shop, the factory, the ship, 
the bank, with commerce, and with the whole world of 
business, before you have changed his course of study 
at all. Why is not such a treatment of the child the 
logical preparation for industrial education? Why 
should we wait until a boy is fourteen years old before 
we wake him up to the fact that he is living in a real 
world ? 

In the shop school of the General Electric Company at 
Lynn, the students spend a part of their time in the 
shop and a part in the classroom. But the classroom is 
directly related to the shop. There are three incen- 
tives for good work in both departments, all of them 
very worldly : first, there is the salary ; second, the 
expectation of being advanced to more important work in 
the shop; third, the possibility of losing the job alto- 
gether. The work thus takes on a highly practical caste 
and the word practical always brings us in contact with 
real affairs. 

But the world is not only the world of affairs. There is 
a world that we call nature which is just as real and just 
as inviting as the world that we call business. The child 



52 BETTER SCHOOLS 

should have a pari in the real life of the world, but 
he should also be brought into dose and loving touch 
with the great and deeply interesting world of Nature. 
That the child should grow up and know nothing of 
the things that grow, the sun and moon and stars that 
shine, and the earth and the sea, is an injustice to 

him. But it is also a mistake, for if my contention 

be true that the child seeks life, then, by shutting him 
out of that life, we are again drying up the springs of 
action, we are helping to create that apathy which is the 

nightmare oi popular education. 

There are changes in educational practice that have 
been made in recent wars, which are not for the better. 
Not everything that is new is good, and much that is 
old is very good. But the great change, a change that 
is in the highest sense beneficent, is the change in atti- 
tude; it is a change on the part of the teacher from the 
infallible schoolmaster attitude to that of the humble 
learner. We have reaped (he harvest oi our infallibility 
and we ought to be more humble than we used to be. 
We have found out that education is like language; 
it cannot be iovcvd into the student, but it is easily 
absorbed. We are beginning to suspect that the child 
will take to education as he does to baseball, but only 
when the baseball conditions are present. 

We have not all oi us found this out. With many of 
us it is the story of "The Calf Path." Several hundred 
years ago the calf found its way home across the fields 
and through the woods by a very crooked path. The 



GUMPTION 53 

next day a dog followed in the same path ; then the sheep 
followed, and then men, until the path became well worn 
and traveled. In the course of time it became a lane, a 
road, and finally a city street, but the zigzags that the calf 
made were faithfully preserved. No one had ventured 
to straighten the path. 

There are yet many calf paths in education. 



CHAPTER V 
Manual Training 

In the latter part of the nineteenth century the public 
became much exercised over what it regarded as the 
unpractical character of American education. The 
schooling of our youth was exclusively from books, and 
our graduates swarmed into offices and stores fit for 
nothing but clerical duties and not very fit for those. 
Manual labor was looked down upon by our boys and 
girls ; those vocations requiring the use of the hands were 
suffering for competent workers. In the early nineties, 
Dr. Maxwell, superintendent of schools of Greater New 
York, said: "The movement for manual training is the 
protest of the people against the hide-bound conservatism 
of the schools ; it is the demand for what will be of prac- 
tical value as opposed to what is merely or largely ideal ; 
it is the cry of thinking men and women to schoolmas- 
ters and school boards. Stop the memorizing of useless 
details and teach our children to form habits of industry, 
train their minds to plan, and their hands to execute." 
The feeling brought about a searching of hearts on the 
part of the educational world, and this resulted in manual 
training. 

But manual training, alas ! furnishes an illustration 
of a great popular demand deliberately set aside by the 

54 



MANUAL TRAINING 55 

influence of the educators. It is perfectly clear and can 
be proven from the discussions of the day that what the 
public wanted is what is now called industrial educa- 
tion. What they got was manual training, which, with 
all its merits, is not industrial education. In an address 
made in 1882 by Dr. James MacAlister, one of the fore- 
most advocates of manual training — then superin- 
tendent of schools of Philadelphia and subsequently 
president of the Drexel Institute — occur these words : 
"I cannot avoid the conviction that very large numbers 
of young persons are really debarred from obtaining any 
benefit from secondary schools because of the limitations 
imposed upon their curricula. Nearly one half the class 
leaves at the end of the first year. We shall not have to 
go far to find an explanation of these facts. The parents 
soon discover that the education which their children are 
getting is not going to be of much practical account to 
them in the business of life, and so the pupils are with- 
drawn and are placed at work. It must not be forgotten 
that by far the larger proportion of these young people 
are intended for industrial pursuits." 

It is very significant of the meaning of the popular 
movement that New Jersey in 1881 passed a law sub- 
sidizing industrial education, and not until 1888 a law 
subsidizing manual training. If the legislators reflected 
public opinion, it is clear that this movement at the outset 
meant industrial training. But the advocates of manual 
training most strenuously protested that they were 
not teaching trades. They were giving boys the ele- 



56 BETTER SCHOOLS 

mentary instruction that would fit them to enter any 
trade, and if they did not enter a trade, would supply 
such a training for the eye, the nerves, the hand and for 
all the mental faculties that the pupil would be better 
fitted for life. But to teach trades was un-American, it 
was to introduce the principle of caste. The American 
educator was not in full sympathy with the popular 
demand. He gave the public not what the public asked, 
but what in his opinion the public ought to ask. It ap- 
peased the public, the clamor died away, and manual 
training became an institution. 

It must not be inferred that because manual training 
is not industrial training it is not a good thing. It rep- 
resents a most beneficent forward movement in educa- 
tion. The following are some of its benefits : — 

While the subject has not pretended to fit the student 
for actual life it has nevertheless done so in a most re- 
markable way. The records of the graduating classes 
of the manual training high schools of the country show 
a strikingly large percentage of young men who have 
gone into positions of trust and responsibility in the 
mechanical world. The advocates of the subject are too 
much inclined to belittle this great result in their efforts 
to demonstrate the purely educational advantages of 
manual training. For example, in a recent address at 
Washington University the speaker said of the earlier 
history of this subject, "Many thought the institution 
would develop into a trade or industrial school. In 
that case they could see the ' bread-and-butter ' utility of 



MANUAL TRAINING 57 

manual training, but could see in it no genuinely educa- 
tive value." 

The advocates of manual training have been insistent 
that it should not be identified with manual labor. Dr. 
Calvin Woodward, one of the most prominent of these 
advocates, says, for example: " Manual training is not 
trade instruction, not work in which the usefulness of 
the articles made is of greater importance than the mak- 
ing of them. It is not the acquisition of skill in the use 
of a tool for the purpose of securing business advan- 
tages." 

It would be better if the "bread-and-butter" side 
were more thoroughly appreciated in our own country, 
and, it must be added, this side is rapidly coming to 
the front. Our foreign critics have juster views. Dr. 
Duncker, Commissioner of Industries in Berlin, in a 
Report to the Imperial Secretary of Commerce and Labor, 
makes these observations on American manual training : 
"The manual training high school does not send forth 
people who are anxious to get away from the world of 
reality and who look with contempt upon manual labor. 
The shop work, in charge of efficient teachers, promotes 
an appreciation of manual art and a respect for manual 
work. This idea that every kind of decent work is 
honorable is one of the firmest pillars of American great- 
ness." 

Professor Ripper, Professor of Engineering, University 
College, Sheffield, England, states the outcome very 
simply and truly. "While it prepares for no particular 



58 BETTER SCHOOLS 

industry, it gives boys a command of their hands as 
well as of their minds, and is essential to a full training of 
the faculties. It engenders not only a respect for, but 
a keen interest in, manual employment, with the result 
that many boys enter constructive trades and become 
successful who would otherwise have missed their way 
in some clerical or professional employment for which 
they were less fitted. " 

Yes, the industrial world and our American youth are 
both indebted to manual training to an extent that can 
never be computed. 

The subject always illustrates, wherever it is intro- 
duced, the truth that children will gladly take the edu- 
cation that connects them with the outside world. The 
interest that the pupils display in the work is one of the 
striking facts. A story such as this may be paralleled 
all over the country. In a certain high school the boys 
of the first and second years were required to join the 
manual training classes, but those of the two upper classes 
were permitted to volunteer. Much to the surprise of 
the teachers, every boy in the school announced his 
desire to take the new course, and before many weeks had 
elapsed the senior boys, conscious that their time was 
limited to the few weeks of school left before graduation, 
formed a special class to take lessons after school hours, 
and on Saturdays, thus giving the strongest evidence 
of their appreciation of the chance afforded them of 
getting even a brief course of manual training. 

When there is a general demand from the pupils in 



MANUAL TRAINING 59 

every high school to come afternoons and Saturdays to 
study grammar it should be promptly reported. 

One of the developments of manual training is the 
wonderful fact that the academic work of the course is 
better done. This is incontestable. This fact has im- 
pressed foreign observers. 

Joseph R. Heape, Vice Chairman of the Education 
Committee and Chairman of the Technical School, 
Sub- Committee, Rochdale, England, says: "The prin- 
cipals are most emphatic in expressing their belief in the 
educational value of the work, stating that the boys learn 
such subjects as geometry and algebra much better from 
realizing their value and importance, and that in general 
they easily ' forge ahead' of other boys. The boys are all 
very keen at their work, and it is constantly urged 
that if in the workshops one secures keenness and per- 
sistence of method, these qualities do not stop in the shop, 
but are carried into all the other work of the school." 
The simple secret is that manual training arouses a vital 
interest in the mind of the child, and this awakening 
stimulates his interest in every essential department of 
his life. It arouses and vitalizes his mind. 

Dr. Franz Kupers, Director of the " Fortbildung- 
schule," Cologne, Germany, remarks that "Pupils 
who show little inclination or desire for theoretical 
learning can, through manual training, become interested, 
properly employed, and gradually won over to other 
branches of instruction." The reason is simply that it 
gives rest and reaction from continuous application to 



60 BETTER SCHOOLS 

book study, relieves the tension, and returns the boy to his 
other tasks quickened and refreshed in body and mind. 

Manual training appeals to a class of young men who 
do not care for literary work and intend to leave school. 
Every high school has many such pupils. Dr. Duncker, 
from whom I have already quoted, says of these pupils: 
"They are not mentally defective, but their strength 
lies somewhere else. Schools with a one-sided course of 
study cannot satisfy them or give them the training they 
require. Such pupils become discouraged and dissatis- 
fied. They make the task of the teacher extraor- 
dinarily difficult ; they retard the progress of the other 
pupils. They drag themselves from room to room, 
and leave the school as soon as the law permits. If they 
succeed in life, they do so, not because of the training they 
received at school, but in spite of it. The manual train- 
ing high school seeks to lead these young men to mental 
life through the shop." 

Comparatively few boys and girls are really book- 
minded, yet until recently all pupils were tested in book 
learning only. 

In the school shop, problems must be met. The 
slipshod answer, the inarticulate answer, the evasion 
of answering at all, these are impossible in the shop. 
The materials with which the pupil deals are wood and 
metal, not words. The problem must be faced and 
overcome, and the work must show accuracy. This is 
a training in realities and tends to honesty. 

Manual training furnishes one of the best possible 



MANUAL TRAINING 6 1 

means of physical training. Pupils suffering from ner- 
vousness in the practice school and the training class 
have overcome their nervousness to a great degree by 
taking this course. 

These arguments place manual training on a firm basis. 
It is not a luxury. It yields rich returns in practical 
scholarship. It forms sensible views of life in the minds 
of pupils. Mr. Heape, already quoted, speaking on this 
subject in his report to the Mosely Commission, says : 
"For one thing, most boys have never had the opportunity 
of using their hands at school and realize the charm of 
making things ; and, for another, the work of a craftsman 
is looked upon as inferior to that of a clerk. Both 
these points should be met, and the boys of an industrial 
nation should certainly come into contact with manipu- 
lative and constructive handwork during their school 
life." 

Dr. Alvin Pabst, of Leipsic, says what every one knows 
is true, and enforces the principle for which I have con- 
tended. "The severest criticism to which the school 
of the present day subjects itself is that it has seats for 
book learning, but no tables and benches for the 
manifold activities with which the children should be 
occupied. Mere book learning is the more injurious 
the sooner it begins, for the less is the brain developed, 
and the greater the injury done the child through one- 
sided mental work. A natural, rational system of ed- 
ucation must begin by making the children familiar 
with the things in the exterior world, so that these may be 



62 BETTER SCHOOLS 

practically conceived in their relation to man. There- 
fore, the school education that is based upon the study 
of books only must be replaced by one which advocates 
practical instruction." 

But what about industrial education? Is it to be 
welcomed? Most assuredly. Perhaps we were not 
ready for industrial education when the call came in 
1880. But compliance with the demand cannot be 
refused now. Every postponement will spell industrial 
decadence and financial calamity for our nation. 

But will industrial education displace manual training ? 
Only in part. Industrial training is specific and not 
general as in the case of manual training. It is not general 
education. It is the training for a vocation. But 
manual training will fulfill all the purposes for which it is 
intended for those to whom industrial training does 
not apply or applies to a limited extent. The advantages 
that have been set forth apply not only to those who 
have decided to enter the industrial world, but also to all 
who are going to enter the world at all. But especially 
does this subject come to the aid of the average student 
in causing his views of the life he is about to enter to 
take shape. 

The following figures are the result of an investigation 
that was made in an American city some time ago. It 
looked to the ascertaining of the intentions of the pupils 
of the high school on graduation. There were 348 
replies. Among the facts revealed were the following : 
Percent of pupils intending to go to college, 14; per- 



MANUAL TRAINING 63 

cent of pupils intending to teach, 7 ; percent of pupils 
who have chosen a business other than teaching, 10. 

The small proportion of pupils who have a definite 
idea as to what they are going to do in life is very striking. 
The inference would be that our system of education 
does not tend in such a direction as to suggest to the 
students the appropriate lines of development. 

If the inference is correct, our system of education is 
not a very sensible one when only 31 per cent of the 
pupils have a clear idea in regard to the work they in- 
tend to do after leaving school. 



CHAPTER VI 

Industrial Education 

It seems a very reasonable claim that education ought 
to fit a child to do what he must do in after life. It is 
clearly wrong to limit this preparation to making a living; 
there is more in life than mere existence and maintaining 
the existence. But it is clearly madness to deny that 
the making of a living is one of the very important ends 
of education. And the term living ought in all fairness 
to mean just as good a living as a man can make. 

Let us then make this broad and simple classification 
of the ends of education; (i) those which relate to mak- 
ing the child self-supporting, and (2) those which look 
to his culture, happiness, power, and character. If we 
really tried to make this classification in practice, we would 
find it very difficult, for the same subject in the course of 
study may accomplish both ends and may even accom- 
plish one end while being used to achieve the other. 
Thus, the study of German may be undertaken merely for 
its culture result, but the knowledge of the language 
may be invaluable in business and the study by which 
the knowledge is attained may prove an admirable disci- 
pline in preparing for the conflict of wits in after life. 

Now when we accept the "bread-and-butter" theory 

64 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 65 

as one of the theories of education, and I do not see how 
we can avoid accepting it, we run up against the term 
"vocational education," which is now in the air. By 
this term we understand an education that is directly 
and specifically intended to fit a child to get a living, 
or rather, to do the things that belong to his life work. 
In passing, it must be ever kept in mind that much in 
education that is not called vocational tends to the end 
to which vocational education directly looks. John 
Stuart Mill, for example, said: " Education makes a 
man a more intelligent shoemaker, if that be his 
occupation, but not by teaching him how to make shoes ; 
it does so by the mental exercise it gives, and the habit 
it impresses." 

In commenting on this quotation, Mr. George H. 
Martin, when secretary of the Massachusetts State 
Board of Education, said: "John Stuart Mill's shoe- 
maker, having been taught somehow to make shoes, 
was to be made an intelligent shoemaker by educa- 
tion. But supposing he had never been taught to 
make shoes, what would his education have done for 
him ? It might have made him an intelligent man, but 
he would not have been a shoemaker at all, and then 
where would his living come from?" 

Vocational education is not a new thing even among us. 
We have already carried some branches of it to a high 
degree of perfection. Our state normal schools are 
vocational institutions. They are founded and sup- 
ported not to educate in a general sense, but to fit young 



66 BETTER SCHOOLS 

men and women to become teachers; that is to say, to 
prepare for a single branch of industry. Our theological, 
medical, and legal schools are purely vocational; they 
exist simply and solely to prepare for their respective 
callings, the ministry, medicine, and law. The com- 
mercial department of our high schools is a vocational 
department. It is established to prepare students for 
mercantile life. And our sewing courses in our own 
public schools are vocational and nothing else. They 
aim to prepare our girls to do one part of the work which 
will fall to their lot as home-makers. One of the most 
touching and practical vocational ventures of which I 
have recently heard, is the formation of classes of young 
women in high schools for the study of baby hygiene. 
All that relates to an infant's comfort and health is 
practically taught, the baby, for example, being actually 
washed in the presence of the class. This is vocational 
in a high sense. 

When the term industrial education is used, we are 
merely applying to the mechanical industries the voca- 
tional principles with which, as I have shown, we are so 
familiar. Now if the school may teach sewing, cooking, 
and other domestic activities to girls, and prepare boys 
and girls both to be bookkeepers and stenographers, 
and if the state may support institutions to prepare 
teachers, why may not the state take upon itself the 
preparation of boys for other employments? Why 
not for the machine shops, for example ? It seems as if 
there could be but one answer to this question. But 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 67 

is it the duty of the state to do it ? Is it the duty of the 
state to do any of the vocational work which it is doing, 
the normal, the commercial, the domestic ? 

There is but one adequate justification of the state 
in doing anything that it does in education. That 
justification is the state's own interests. The state does 
not educate the boy because it loves him; it educates 
him because it does not dare to have him uneducated. 
At the beginning it must educate as a matter of self- 
preservation. Once in the business it must extend the 
field and manifold the functions of education as it sees 
that education makes possible the enrichment and per- 
fection of that life which education was originally in- 
tended merely to preserve. The man who pays his tax 
for the education of a neighbor's child does so, not because 
he loves his neighbor or his child, but because the educa- 
tion of the children of all his neighbors is necessary to a 
state of society in which his own interests find their high- 
est protection and development. 

Applying this principle to the subject in hand, the 
state prepares teachers because the purposes of educa- 
tion are frustrated by untrained teachers. It prepares 
stenographers because the commercial world must have 
them ; men cannot write their own letters now, and their 
clerks cannot take them down or write them fast enough 
in long hand. We have reached a new era in mercantile 
life. In the field of industrial education the expression 
of the public views comes with emphasis and in very 
clear and ringing terms. 



68 BETTER SCHOOLS 

Associations of manufacturers have expressed them- 
selves repeatedly and forcibly. The National Society for 
the Promotion of Industrial Education is composed 
largely of the great capitalists and manufacturers of the 
country. Theodore Roosevelt has declared industrial 
education to be the most important problem of the 
public schools. 

No educational movement at the present moment 
is attracting so much attention as that in favor of in- 
dustrial education. It is an old movement in Germany, 
and in that country industrial education has practically 
taken a permanent form, or rather forms, for it is ex- 
pressed in a variety of schools. In our own country there 
have been for a long time scattering industrial institu- 
tions like the Lowell Textile School, but Industrial 
Education as a movement has gained headway only 
within recent years. 

Massachusetts and Wisconsin have led in the move- 
ment, but the whole country is awake. Massachusetts 
created a state commission several years ago to make 
propaganda, to advise with school boards, and to super- 
vise the equipment, buildings, employment of teachers, 
and adoption of courses of study. The report of this 
commission created a stir in public sentiment, and while 
the immediate practical outcome was incommensurate 
with the effort put forth, the agitation of the subject 
received an impetus that has awakened public interest 
in the subject throughout the whole of America. 

The reason for this great awakening is simple enough. 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 69 

The thinking people of the United States have become 
convinced that industrial education is the open road to in- 
dustrial supremacy, and that to neglect it means that we 
must take a subordinate place. I quote from the United 
States Deputy Consul Meyer of Chemnitz, Germany, in 
the consular reports for 1905 (special consular report 33). 
a Ina comparatively short time Germany has become 
one of the great workshops of the world, and has secured 
a place in the front rank of manufacturing nations with 
but little assistance from nature and in the face of 
many difficulties. It is not a rich country; its natural 
resources are moderate; its position is disadvantageous 
for trading ; it has enjoyed peace for only thirty years ; 
it has never enjoyed security, and tranquillity has been 
purchased at the cost of an immense military advantage. 
Then, its people are not particularly inventive and have 
not fashioned for themselves superior weapons in the 
shape of new mechanical appliances and revolutionizing 
processes, like the earlier inventions of England and the 
later ones of America. And yet Germany has advanced 
from comparatively small beginnings so rapidly that she 
now does what no other country, though possessing 
superior advantages and fewer difficulties, can do ; she 
successfully challenges England in nearly all the great 
branches of industry in which England is or was stronger. 
Germany is an all-round competitor and our most 
formidable one. And not only ours ; she competes with 
other countries in the products in which they are 
strongest, with the United States in electrical machinery 



70 BETTER SCHOOLS 

and small machine tools, with France in dress materials, 
as she does with England in ship building and large 
machinery." 

Without undervaluing culture and without neglecting 
it in the schools, it is clear that in addition to learning 
from books the schools must furnish training in vocational 
work as a true preparation for life. Why is the solution 
not as simple as in the case of the commercial high 
school or the normal school ? 

"'I want to leave school and get a job.' The usual 
answer is, ' Get an education first — before it's too late. 
You can get a job later.' Now is that true? Can the 
average ' graduate' readily 'get a job later,' in compe- 
tition with the fellow who left school young — and 
hustled?" 

I have quoted from David Stone Wheeler. This is 
the argument from the boy's side. Do the interests of the 
boy and the interests of the business world coincide or 
even harmonize? That is the crux of the whole ques- 
tion. I think the American public is at the present mo- 
ment divided into three camps. First, the pronounced 
advocates of industrial education. Second, the con- 
servatives who view the movement with distrust and 
believe that the boy is to be sacrificed to the ambition 
of the manufacturer. Third, the uncertain people, the 
people who are puzzled and who are trying to make up 
their minds. This class comprises not only the weak and 
vacillating, but also the thoughtful who hesitate because 
they see too clearly both sides of the question. 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 7 1 

The objections to the industrial education movement 
are these: i. There is no popular demand for it; the 
demand is confined to the manufacturers and is a selfish 
demand. 2. The industrial education movement is 
founded on a principle abhorrent to the American mind, 
the principle of caste, 3. It deprives the child of his 
right to a broad general education, substituting trade 
training for the culture necessary to the proper enjoyment 
of life. 4. It is impossible to teach all the trades at public 
expense. 5. All industrial education is very expensive. 

Let us look closely at these objections. A discussion 
of them is the best way to discover what is really pro- 
posed by the industrial education movement. Sooner or 
later every one will be called upon to make a decision 
on the many questions which the movement raises. 

It is true that there is no clearly defined opinion on the 
part of the public on the subject of vocational instruction. 
A great many people have never heard of the subject. 
Another great section never demand anything; these 
people are contented with things just as they are. An- 
other section has a vague notion that something of the 
kind is necessary but have no notion what should be done. 
The comprehension of industrial needs is limited to a small 
body of educators, a considerable body of manufacturers, 
a few educated laymen, and some of the trades unions. 
It is the intelligence and earnestness of these forces that 
is pressing the subject on public attention. 

But it does not follow that there is not an undercurrent 
of feeling extremely vague, and doubtless mistaken on one 



72 BETTER SCHOOLS 

or more points, that merely awaits direction to become an 
intense and intelligent factor in the question. This feel- 
ing at present, in its crudest expression, expends itself in 
dissatisfaction with the schools as a whole. People may 
not know the remedy — it is doubtful if any one does — 
but they may easily unite on a remedy, and it may easily 
be the wrong remedy. This is a dangerous state of things. 

For example : no one can be insensible to the fact that 
children leave school with great rapidity. In Albany, 
New York, for instance, only 35 per cent of the pupils 
who enter at the first grade remain to graduate from 
the grammar school. In Springfield, Massachusetts, the 
per cent is 30, and only 88 per cent of those who en- 
tered the first grade eventually entered the senior year 
of the high school. Whether the average man has at 
his command such figures or not, the general fact is 
before him. He cannot explain it, but he is uneasy. 
Some of us who think we can explain it have the feel- 
ing that this uneasiness is pointing ominously in the 
right direction. 

It is clear to a great many persons that the wages 
their children are able to earn as a result of their schooling 
are pitifully small, and this fact is also tolerably clear to 
the parties getting the small wages. In contrast to these 
are the wages received by the more favored young men in 
professional and skilled mechanical employments. a Too 
many American boys and girls," says Superintendent 
Gibson, of Georgia, "have been slipping through the 
meshes of the elementary schools and going out to join 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 73 

the vast army of bread-winners without adequate train- 
ing. Many of those who leave the schools have a feeling, 
based upon observation of their bread-winning friends, 
that the preparation they are receiving in the schools 
does not give them earning power." " Sixty-eight per 
cent, as a result of one investigation of over five thousand 
cases, drift into the ranks of unskilled labor ; that is, in 
department and other stores, as messengers, errand boys 
in offices, and in factories and shops employing hands of 
a grade known as unskilled labor." 

A significant statement made by Charles H. Morse, 
formerly secretary of the Massachusetts Industrial Com- 
mission, illustrates the way in which this undefined 
consciousness sometimes finds expression. He says : 
"As head of the Manual Training School in Cambridge, 
I saw it grow from 120 pupils to over 500. I know 
that a very large percentage of those boys entered the 
school because their parents believed that the school 
was going to teach them a trade ; that is, those parents 
wanted the boys to have that opportunity. We would 
start with more than 100 in the entering class and the 
class in the senior year would be reduced to less then 
50. Those boys dropped out of the school because the 
school was not giving them what they thought they 
wanted. They would beg and their parents would plead 
for the privilege of more work in the shops and they 
would petition to be excused from a purely culture sub- 
ject which they seemed totally unable to handle because 
they had no interest in it." 



74 BETTER SCHOOLS 

This indicates not a popular demand for industrial 
education, but a state of mind which cannot be ignored. 
Let us bear in mind that among the causes for the evils 
which the people believe to exist is the very one that is 
the stock in trade of the industrial training advocate. 
It is not the only cause, as some of these advocates 
would have us think. The common apathy of our pupils 
is due to the fact that they see nothing in the educa- 
tion we offer. It does not touch their lives or make a 
vital appeal to their interest. This apathy leads directly 
to leaving school. Arouse the boy's interest and he is 
willing to stay. Manual training has clearly proven this. 
Supervisor Murray of Springfield, Massachusetts, says : 
"We are asked, 'How do you know that the boys will 
stay in school if they are given vocational work?* Of 
course, we do not know that they all will. We have had 
experience enough, however, with what little has been 
done with manual training to prove that there is a large 
number of these pupils who are held in school and their 
interest aroused through this kind of work. Any live 
manual training teacher can cite cases without number 
where manual training has been practically the only 
thing in the curriculum in which boys have been inter- 
ested, and I have had many boys tell me that they would 
stay in school longer if they had more work with their 
hands." 

The story of industrial education in Germany is really 
a story of evolution. Industrial education did not flame 
up there in a few brief years as we are given to thinking. 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 75 

The story in Germany dates away back into the eight- 
eenth century. There was a slow process of growth 
which was finally halted by the wars of that nation. 
When in 187 1 , after the unification of Germany, industrial 
education was preached and the rapid progress began, the 
seed fell on a soil long in process of preparation. Not 
only are these conditions not paralleled in this country 
but the tendency has been along other lines. Vocational 
training will probably not be added to American educa- 
tion. It will grow out of it. 

" Not how to get — not how to spend — a dollar, but 
how to get — and how to spend — a life." In this epi- 
grammatic sentence David Stone Wheeler, without espe- 
cially intending to do so, puts the substance of the conflict 
between vocational education and its opponents. The 
arguments of the orators on either side are earnest and 
often brilliant, but the progress of the campaign is 
slow. It is strange that the most striking facts make 
so little impression. The industrial education advocate 
presents the brilliant material achievements in Europe 
as a result of industrial training on the one hand, and 
on the other, the clearly demonstrated facts that our 
schools do not provide directly to meet the demands of 
business life, and that thousands of children are leaving 
our schools without finishing the course. Children are 
withdrawn from school and put to work on earnings 
whose scantiness breeds discontent in the presence of 
the fact of better wages for more highly favored youth. 
This is not by any means a demand, only a vague 



76 BETTER SCHOOLS 

impression, but this impression seeks definition, and 
when clearly defined, will become an imperious demand 
in comparison with which the present demand of the 
manufacturer and educator is a feeble matter. 

In an address made by Charles H. Morse to the 
department of superintendence, National Educational 
Association, meeting at Washington, occurs this state- 
ment : ' ' The industrial school should be conducted more as 
a manufacturing business would be conducted. The boys 
and girls in the school should be given to understand that 
time is money. These schools, instead of trying to give 
something which has only cultural value — educational 
value as it has been understood to be — should try to 
give all the subjects taught because of their practical 
value." 

In commenting on Secretary Morse's paper Mr. Dodd, 
of the North Bennett Street Industrial School, Boston, 
said: "No child of grammar school age is sufficiently 
developed physically or mentally to lay aside a broadening 
course and to elect work that trains in specific operations. 
Any scheme advocating such practice would be wholly 
un-American and would tend to even greater class dis- 
tinctions than are found in Europe." 

The phrase " class distinctions" touches the sensitive 
point and expresses a deeply rooted horror of the Ameri- 
can parent. It is the genesis of the hidden force whose 
character I am trying to develop. 

Commissioner Snedden of Massachusetts in a recent 
address presented a scheme for the modification of the 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 77 

grammar school course, whose general features are in 
the main approved by a considerable body of advanced 
educators. The plan provides for a moderate amount of 
flexibility in the last two grades of the elementary school. 
This flexibility may be brought about by requiring all 
the pupils in common to take the work in English, history 
and civics, geography and hygiene, with perhaps a 
limited amount of attention given to music, manual 
training, etc. In addition, every pupil should elect 
one of four groups of supplemental studies: (a) for those 
probably taking a high school course, fitting for college, 
a foreign language and the beginnings of algebra and 
geometry; (b) for those probably going early into industry 
or industrial schools, a course rich in manual training, 
drawing, applied science, and mathematics; (c) for those 
probably going into commercial callings, commercial 
arithmetic, commercial geography, bookkeeping, and 
other practical studies of this type; (d) for girls looking 
forward to home work, a course rich in household arts 
and related sciences. 

It ought to be noted that such a scheme in its essential 
features is not new, and that it did not grow out of the 
vocational need. As Commissioner Snedden himself 
says: " The recognition of the principle of flexibility in 
these grades is simply a logical result of movements 
which have been at work in our educational system for 
generations. The multiplication of knowledge and the 
increasing consideration for differences in children make 
it an apparent necessity in the college and secondary 



78 BETTER SCHOOLS 

school. There are too many studies ; important studies 
like foreign language and science find no place, many 
of the subjects are now treated superficially, many of 
the subjects are too difficult for the pupils." 

The opponent of industrial education or the doubter 
has clearly defined objections. With the general public 
they are feelings, undefined although real, and, at present, 
effective as a retarding influence. 

The parent is not willing at the eighth grade to say 
finally that his boy shall be a mechanic, much less any 
special variety of mechanic. If he places his child in the 
industrial class, he thinks he must bid good-by to any 
advancement for the child in some other line in which 
he might have done better. He cannot bear the thought 
of settling his boy's destiny so early. The American 
idea is equal opportunity. By his own act he limits 
the child's opportunities. The educator who sympa- 
thizes with him says outright that no classification should 
prevent the pupil from changing his course at any time 
and pursuing any line of education to the limit. Down 
below the surface lies that idea expressed by the hated 
word "caste." 

Again, the parent knows that even if he would, he 
cannot yet decide for the boy what he will do in life. 

As for the child himself, the value of his choice of an 
occupation in the seventh grade is rather amusingly stated 
by Miss Langley of the University of Chicago : " Even if 
voluntary, early vocational selection is not to be trusted. 
It is liable to be whimsical, uncertain, determined by 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 79 

temporary influences. If the kind of occupation fer- 
vently chosen by every boy of ten were to reach mature 
realization, the army and the navy, the police force and 
the livery business would be steadily overcrowded." 
She adds: " Vocational selection, if imposed upon the 
child while still in the grades, is likely to be a disastrous 
mistake. No teacher, no parent even, holds the divining 
rod whereby may be discovered the secret springs of a 
child's best future activity. By all means give every 
child a chance at a trade, but first give him the oppor- 
tunity of being a developed individual." 

Right or wrong, she states the expressed or unexpressed 
feeling of many a parent and the positive opinion of many 
an educator. And this view she holds while emphasiz- 
ing the necessity of trade schools. 

I have tried to state with fairness this opposing view or 
feeling. But an impartial statement must not leave out 
the rejoinder. We have not disposed of the fact that 
great numbers of children are leaving school all the 
time, thus, as Commissioner Snedden puts it, " actually 
making a choice of vocation." And we must add, that 
in many cases they are making a very bad choice. The 
assumption is that industrial education would keep these 
children in school and provide for them what they want. 
This assumption yet awaits proof. 

Out of this confusing maze we shall ultimately emerge 
on the truth. A few points stand out clearly and are not 
seriously contested. First, that industrial education in 
some form is imperatively needed by the American nation ; 



80 BETTER SCHOOLS 

second, that our schools are not holding their pupils; 
third, that the public is discontented with the output 
of our schools ; fourth, that the courses of study must 
come nearer to practical life ; fifth, that the suggestion 
of caste will not be accepted by the American parent. 

What is the solution of the problem ? 

Every subject in education bristles with difficult ques- 
tions. The thoughtful educator must acknowledge 
that he lives in the midst of perplexity. Many times he 
must ask "What is truth?" 

Superintendent Gibson of Georgia writes: "Recent 
investigations conducted by the educational department 
of the international committee of the Young Men's 
Christian Association demonstrated that of thirteen 
million young men in the United States between the 
ages of twenty-one and thirty-five, only five per cent 
received in connection with their school education any 
preparation for their several occupations. It was also 
discovered that of every one hundred graduates of our 
elementary schools, only eight obtained their livelihood 
by means of the professions and commercial business, 
while the remaining ninety-two supported themselves 
and their families by the skill of their hands. 

"Add to these graduates the large number of those who 
fall out of the elementary schools from the fourth grade 
on, and we have a vast army of young people going into 
the bread-winning occupations with no specific training 
therefor." 

This seems to constitute an unanswerable demand for 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 8 1 

industrial education. But on the other hand, let me 
quote from a recent scholarly address of Dr. C. H. 
Henderson, author of the popular book " Education and 
the Larger Life." 

" Industry has perfected its measures, processes, and 
relatively it has done tremendous work in cheapening 
production, in magnifying production, in giving us 
almost a surfeit of things. To work these machines 
and to carry out these processes, industry must have 
some sort of a human attendant to do that part which 
cannot be relegated to machinery. Industry does not 
ask for educated persons, but when it makes its bald 
and characteristic statement, it asks purely for people 
who can carry out its processes. If you have a heart and 
eyes you know very well that the human side of this 
tremendous industrial development is very little looked 
after. I think that we need no education to know that 
the homes of the workers are not beautiful ; that the 
majority of them are not happy, and that only a few 
of them are healthy. I say that primarily it is not 
concerned with persons, but with things; with their 
movement; with their production, their distribution, 
and it ignores the human side of life to a very large 
and lamentable degree." 

These extracts give the substance of my discussion 
of the opposing views on the question of industrial 
education. The following are suggestions which seem 
to me to be fair to the pupil and practicable as well as 
practical. 



82 BETTER SCHOOLS 

There is much education that may be given from the 
very beginning, to relate the pupil to the affairs of actual 
life. I have tried to show how academic is our elemen- 
tary education. Some of it must be academic, but why 
not also infuse the course of study with the spirit of 
the real work-a-day world ? It is a very interesting 
world. I hesitate to argue or even illustrate this propo- 
sition because I have done so before, but one or two 
illustrations may not be superfluous. 

They were digging trenches and laying a water pipe 
near the Prattville school. In one or two of the classes, 
this matter was investigated, not by reading to the pupils 
on the subject, but by sending them out to get informa- 
tion for themselves. Questions of a practical nature 
were given to the pupils to be solved and reported upon 
by the pupils. The following are illustrations of some 
of these questions : — 

In which direction of the street does the water flow ? 
Where does the pipe discharge? Which way does 
the pipe into which it discharges run? How wide is 
the pipe ? How much water flows through the pipe in 
an hour ? How much water is needed in the city every 
day? How much is wasted? Where does the water 
come from? Where is the reservoir? What are the 
usual sources of water supply ? etc. 

If such questions as these are answered by pupils 
who have found out for themselves, it is evident that 
physics, geography, government, etc., become real. 

In many cities the pupils visit car shops, factories, 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 8$ 

telephone offices, etc. If the work is wisely handled 
after such visits, the pupils have come out of the academic 
and into the real. Any one can suggest the multitude 
of practical questions that such a visit could occasion. 

In arithmetic, nature study, reading, history, the 
development of this realistic method is limitless when 
once we have caught the idea. 

Charles H. Morse thus emphasized this view of the 
matter: "I would have the child at that age study, in 
connection with other subjects, the manufacturing 
establishments of the community. He should know 
their business organization and general methods of 
management, their history, the sources of the raw 
materials used, the geography of the regions from which 
the raw materials come, the transportation facilities, and, 
in a general way, the various processes of manufacture. 
The market, the finished product should be studied ; also 
the special qualifications required of the employees, 
the wages for beginners, the average increase of wages, 
and the possibilities for advancement for an earnest, 
intelligent worker, as well as the hours of work and the 
steadiness of employment for each industry." 

Mr. Murray, Supervisor of Manual Training in Spring- 
field, says: "A complete system of industrial edu- 
cation requires constructive work in the primary grades, 
not less than two hours a week in the grammar grades for 
all pupils, special extra classes for those boys who have 
not progressed far enough in the grades so that they 
would get the more formal work with tools, and special 



S4 BETTER SCHOOLS 

classes which will allow those boys who desire it to do 
from two to five hours more work a week. This should 
enable pupils to decide whether they wish to go through 
the technical high school which will lead to the higher 
technical schools and the engineering professions, or 
whether they wish to enter the vocational schools which 
will lead directly to the trades. Trade teaching should 
be only a part of a complete system of industrial educa- 
tion, and manual training is as essential to it as it is to 
the system of general education." 

If a boy who has learned the essential elements of a 
trade does not in the end decide to follow it, he is none 
the worse off. Indeed, he is better off. No one who has 
learned a trade ever regrets it. The chance of a broader 
education, however, should always be open to a boy. 

It is quite conceivable that an opportunity may be 
offered to pupils or their parents to elect an industrial 
class, and to plan the instruction in such a way that the 
pupil or his parent may change his mind without prejudice 
to the pupil at any time. Such an opportunity is actually 
offered, experimentally, in Boston. William Leavitt, 
Assistant Director of Manual Training in Boston, says : — 

"Beginning with Grade VI, the children have a chance 
to elect (or their parents to elect for them) admission 
to the industrial class. In this industrial class, five 
hours, at least, should be given to manual training — the 
time to be taken from drawing, physical training, and 
arithmetic. The work done in these classes, and the 
conditions under which it is done, conform as closely as 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 85 

possible to actual industrial work in real life. The prod- 
uct should be not only useful, but should be put to use, 
preferably by the city. The articles made should be those 
that may be produced in quantities. The methods should 
be practical, and both product and method should be 
subjected to the same commercial tests, as far as possible, 
as apply in actual industry. What is it hoped to accom- 
plish? To turn the attention of the children to things 
industrial; to give them an appreciation of values — 
the value of materials, of time, and of modern industrial 
methods; to prolong the school life of the pupils while 
enhancing their chances for industrial success." 

There is a class of boys in the elementary schools who 
have progressed in the regular school work just as far as 
they will go. With them it may be simply a question of 
leaving school. To offer to such boys a factory school 
course is not to doom them to a low station in life, but to 
open up the possibility of a higher station than they could 
obtain if they followed their own callow judgment in 
leaving school. It would be a hasty judgment to assume 
that such boys belong mentally to the poorer grade of 
pupils. It is unsafe to conclude anything concerning a 
boy's ability because he does not take kindly to books. 
Such boys may, without prejudice to their rights, be 
directed toward the schools in the factories or the in- 
dustrial training schools in which their productive, 
constructive, and achieving tendencies may be developed. 
The culture of these powers will mean much more in 
most cases than the mere storing of their minds with 



86 BETTER SCHOOLS 

book knowledge, both for the individuals themselves and 
for their country. 

There is a class who have no choice whatever in the 
matter. Whether they desire to do so or not, they 
must leave school at an early age, and they often know it 
in advance. This class is frequently forgotten in the 
discussions. Here the alternative offered is to allow 
the pupil to disappear and to be lost in the ranks of the 
unskilled or poorly paid workers or to be given a start 
in some direction that will enable him to find work at a 
living wage. By giving such a child a vocational train- 
ing we are not preventing the child from doing something 
that might be better for him ; on the contrary, we are 
preventing him from doing something that is surely 
worse. 

If the vocational flavor has thus permeated the elemen- 
tary school, the pupil is likely to arrive at the high 
school somewhat prepared to choose. Here, it must be 
borne in mind, students are already actually choosing. 
They choose a commercial, a technical, a college course, 
or they choose a special institution, such as the Agri- 
cultural College. To choose an industrial course, or a 
course in domestic science, is only carrying the present 
freedom of choice a little farther. The final choice for 
life is not made here, but it is a very serious choice. 

It would seem that the Industrial high school must of 
necessity soon take its place along with the commerical 
and agricultural schools. In these schools must be 
introduced, says Mr. Barney of the Hebrew Technical 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 87 

Institute, New York: "Thorough practical courses in 
industrial and technical work, which courses shall include 
not only the use and manipulation of tools, but shall 
combine therewith those subjects which will lead to an 
industrial intelligence, a knowledge of materials and 
the principles of mechanics, of the cost of production and 
the commercial value of time." 

To this summary I would add Mr. Martin's demand : 
"In order that the student may become a useful citizen 
as well as a skilled workman, the school course should 
include history, economics, and civics. Time also should 
be provided for thorough physical training, including 
personal hygiene and organized athletics. English should 
be cultivated through the course by composition and 
forensics. Opportunity should be offered to those stu- 
dents who might find relaxation and aesthetic pleasure 
in the study and practice of vocal and instrumental 
music. 

"Otherwise," he says, "this whole work would be 
destructive of the most cherished American ideals, if, 
while teaching young men how to get a better living, the 
schools failed to teach them how to live a better life." 

As to the financial value to the students of an industrial 
course such as that offered in the Hebrew Technical 
Institute, I quote Mr. Barney again: "The average 
age at graduation is seventeen years and three months. 
Seventy-five per cent are following mechanical lines 
of work corresponding to those taught them at the 
Institute. The average earnings vary from $8 a week 



88 BETTER SCHOOLS 

for those graduated a year ago to $50 a week for the 
older classes graduated twenty years ago, the average 
increase being $2 per week for each year that the boy 
is out of the school." 

The financial problem for the community is the diffi- 
cult consideration, and demands careful deliberation 
before a community embarks on the venture. The per 
capita cost in the school from which we have taken the 
above figures has varied during the past five years from 
$105 to $113 as schools usually reckon the per capita 
cost, or from $120 to $125, including every expense. 

I desire to emphasize the proposition that vocational 
education must be an important element in the education 
of all our youth, no matter what they are going to do. To 
know the real world is absolutely necessary to a well- 
balanced mind. And what way so excellent to know the 
world as to engage to some extent in what the world 
does? 



CHAPTER VII 

Nature Study 

At a meeting of the School Board in an American city 
a number of years ago, a member suddenly arose and 
made the following address. "Mr. Chairman: I 
hear that there is a study taught in our schools called 
nature study. Now I think that subject is no good and 
I move that it be abolished. " His motion did not pre- 
vail, but it received two or three votes for which he 
had probably provided. Fortunately the board had 
a member who was able to demolish his proposition. 

The interesting part of the incident was the calm assur- 
ance of the member. He had made no investigation, he 
had not consulted the superintendent, but he had pro- 
nounced the subject "no good," and he was quite sure 
that it must appear in that light to anybody. It was 
obviously "no good." 

Now this man was not a bad man, but he is a type of 
a class of people who hold views regarding education 
which they are pleased to designate as "practical." It 
is a type that sees in any effort by study and research 
to discover the value of an educational proposition, 
an evidence of impracticability, and labels the person who 
would thus seek to arrive at truth a theorist or a vision- 
ary. But on the other hand, to be very positive on a 

89 



90 BETTER SCHOOLS 

proposition to which you have given no study, is being 
" practical." Education, religion, and politics are the 
favorite stamping grounds of these "practical" men, 
but there is no other department of human work in 
regard to which men will express such positive opinions 
without any logical basis and without any consideration, 
as education. When you pass into the realm of money 
making, where financial loss rewards the man who does 
not carefully study his business, the value of such practical 
men diminishes. We find the practical man in business, of 
course, but he corresponds very closely to the so-called 
theorist in education. He is the man who has a reason. 
It is strange how many hard, practical realities like the 
telephone are the concrete expression of theories. 

Ex-Superintendent Seaver of Boston referred, in one 
of his reports, to teachers who say that time taken 
for nature study is time that belongs to the "regular 
studies." His comment is graphic. "Two ideas in this 
quotation are significant of the whole educational 
philosophy of these teachers" (and I add, and laymen) ; 
"certain studies are regular (essential is sometimes used), 
and the time belongs to the studies. The picture pre- 
sented is that of an elevated platform built of planks, 
labeled fractions, interest, complex sentences, adverbial 
phrases, spelling, capitals, geographical facts, historical 
facts, physiological facts, musical intervals, etc. On 
this platform stands the teacher, striving with might and 
main to pull up to it and place upon it, in good standing 
position, heads erect, eyes forward and hands by the 



NATURE STUDY 9 1 

side, as many children as possible. A few children are 
there with both feet. Many are clinging to the edge, 
and, with the teacher's help, struggling for a place. 
Many more have given up the struggle in despair, and 
are lying helpless at the foot. Some have only sat 
and stared." 

Thoughtful teachers have long been searching for a 
theory to account for a lamentable and incontestable 
fact, the apathy of the average pupil. The theory in 
this case is that he seeks the activity of the world, 
and the school does not relate him closely to that world. 
This is only one of several coordinate theories, but it is 
sufficient to account for a great deal. If one accepts the 
above theory he will find that it rules out subjects and 
methods in the school work which the man who made the 
motion in my story considers self-evidently correct, and 
it sanctions subjects and methods which he must describe 
as frills. So that, when it is said that the newer additions 
to the course of study crowd out some of the other sub- 
jects, one of the answers is, that some of them ought to 
be crowded out. A course in frills would be an interesting 
field for consideration. 

Nature study is a fair type of newer studies based, let 
us say, on theory. I want to illuminate that theory. 
The fundamental theory has been indicated. The study 
brings the child into close touch with life, awakens 
his interest, and thus arouses him to an active attitude 
toward all learning that is also related to life. That is 
the theory. But let us go into details. 



92 BETTBB schools 

Froebel, the apostle of childhood (not merely of the 
kindergarten), Bays, the business of the child is " collecting 

material." Let me quote some of liis pic Inns of < tlild 

hood. They are very beautiful and very true to life. 

"Behold the child laboriously stooping and slowly 
going foi w.ud on I he ground, under i he eaves <>f I he roof. 
The force of the rain has washed oul <>i the sand small, 
smooth, bright pebbles, and the ever-observing child 
gathers them as building stones, as it were, as materia] 

for future building. And is he wroiitf? Docs not the 

child in truth collect material for his future life-build- 
ing? 

"To climb a new I ree means to I he l>ov i he discovers' <>i 
a new world. The <>ui look from above shows everything 
so different from the ordinary cramped and distorted side 
view. I low clear and distinct everything lies beneath 
him! Could we l>ui recall the feelings that Tilled our 
hearts and souls in boyhood, when the narrow limits 
of our surroundings sank before our extended view ! 

44 An Indefinable longing urges him to seek I he I hings of 
Nature, the hidden objects, plants and flowers, etc., In 
Nature; foraconstant presentiment assures him that the 
things that satisfy the longing of the heart cannot be 

found on I he surface; onl of t he de|>( h and darkness I hey 

must l>e brought forth." 

Any One Who has examined the eonlents i^\ a boy's 

pocket does not need to be told thai the hoy is " collecting 
material." To some of us this material Is Mash. To the 
boy, every piece c»i string, pebble, bit of glass, or dead 



NATURE study 93 

mouse is the concrete expression of a story. Every bit 
of trash has an Interpretation which tin- boy either 
has or seeks. If the teacher or parenl can give this 
Interpretation, the restless activity of tin- child continues 

undiminished. To I he end lie is an inquirer. II we fail to 

give die interpretation, the activity fades and the child 
soon inquires no more. 1 1< ceases to ask quest ion.. ( !an 
a sadder condition of things be conceived? Lnconsid 
erate and Impatient parents often help to destroy the 
investigating spirit of the child by saying, "Oh, do stop 
bothering me with your questions." How are we going to 
ediK ate .'i- child who does not < are ? 

Froebel tells H i<* story thus: "The boy seeks from 
adults the confirmation of his inner, spiritual antici 
pations, and justly so, from an intuitive sense of what 
the elder ought to be, from respect for the elder. If he 

fails to find it, a double effc< t follows, ;i. loss of respect 

for the elder and a recoil of the original inner anticipa- 
tion." 

Note the word " interpret al ion." The whole of edu- 
cation is bound Up in the word. When we edue;i.fc ;i. 
boy we seek to help him to interpret the things I"' Sees 
and lh<- thoughts he think:;. And edue.i.l ion is de.id 

or living as we fail or succeed in keeping .-dive the desire 
for interpretation; not mere facts but the meaning of 
these facts, and above -'ill their meaning to him. Inter 
pretation of himself and his surroundings is the meaning 
of play, of story telling, of researt h. lint to interpret In- 
must see accurately, compare carefully, reason logically, 



94 BETTER SCHOOLS 

picture graphically. Nature study furnishes the oppor- 
tunity for this practice. But note that the training of 
these faculties is of the utmost value in all education. 
It is of the last importance that this training should be 
applied to arithmetic, chemistry, or language. The 
trained mind brings to the work of the school the power 
gained from all sources, perhaps in the fields. Surely this 
matter that we are now considering is very practical. 

But alas ! when we enter the actual field of education 
it is not to be assumed because nature study should do 
this, that it is doing it. As in many another field of 
education, teachers have sadly mistaken its purpose and 
the subject is yet in a state of flux. They have tried 
to teach facts without their reaction and have even gone 
so far as to teach science. They have succeeded in 
destroying the child's interest in nature by cramming 
him with the facts of nature, and thus have made of 
no effect the argument in favor of nature study and have 
rejected its beneficent mission. Here again our courses 
of study have followed our own notions and not those 
of the children. It is the old story. There are, for 
example, three indications (not inclusive) as to a rational 
course of nature study: (a) children love life; 
(b) children love beauty; (c) children observe in an 
objective way. These principles would rule out many 
courses of nature study. They would rule out minerals 
until the student had passed the age of boyhood. 
They would rule out for a long time a stuffed owl; a 
live cat is better. They would rule out pistils and 



NATURE STUDY 95 

stamens, scientifically considered. They would rule out, 
for a long while at least, a very analytical observation. 

In a word, nature study is not science and does not 
resemble it. It takes the facts on which science is based 
and treats them from a child's standpoint. 

The absence of the rural environment is aesthetically 
and morally a sad fact in the city boy's development. 
Whatever leads him to the study of nature measurably 
supplies this lack, but it must be the study of nature 
and not of books about nature. We cannot teach 
science to the children; we have not the time, the 
field is too broad, the pupils have not, and cannot 
acquire in childhood, habits of scientific thought, 
and the teachers have not the scientific preparation 
for the teaching, even if all else were favorable. 
To attempt it will result in the memorizing of a larger 
or smaller mass of undigested and indigestible facts. 

It is hard to fully convince ourselves of the truth that 
the function of this branch of study is not to store the 
mind with facts. I have witnessed recitations in which, 
in spite of the enthusiasm and laborious preparation of 
the teacher, the results were very unsatisfactory. The 
pupils were not stimulated to a closer observation of 
nature and not to a perceptible extent to a greater inter- 
est in nature. 

In another class a more agreeable picture was pre- 
sented. My notes on the lesson read as follows : — 

"The development lesson of the tadpole to the frog 
was rather remarkable. The children were full of life, 



96 BETTER SCHOOLS 

answered promptly, and showed great discernment and 
perceptive power. The lesson was well managed, the 
pupils being continually thrown back on what they had 
themselves observed. The lesson called in many col- 
lateral subjects where the main subject admitted of 
this treatment. Thus the strong hind legs suggested 
the kangaroo; the eyes, the cats and owls, etc. The 
subject was also applied to a language lesson." 

There are two other considerations of more than pass- 
ing interest which apply to this subject, to which I must 
refer even in a discussion necessarily as restricted as 
this. One is the development of the appreciation of 
beauty. "Beauty," said Plato, "is the splendor of 
truth." Sidney Lanier said, "There is not only a 
1 beauty of holiness,' there is also a holiness of beauty." 
And Froebel said, "A keen, critical eye can discern in 
the work of art the artist's powers of thought and feeling, 
as well as their state of cultivation ; " thus, too, the 
creative spirit of God may be discerned in Nature, 
in his work. 

In a word, a sense of beauty is an aid to the living of 
a good life and leads indeed to a knowledge of God him- 
self. 

The other consideration is akin to this. Nature leads 
man to God not only because of its beauty but because of 
its unity. "For," says Froebel, "the boy of this age, 
who has been led naturally, however feebly and uncon- 
sciously, seeks, in fact, only the unity that unites all 
things, the absolute living Unity, the source of all 



NATURE STUDY 97 

things, — God ; not a god made and fashioned by- 
human wit, but He who is ever near the heart and 
mind, near the living spirit, and who therefore may be 
known in spirit and in truth, and who alone can be thus 
approached." 

In a Scotch home the good man was sick. The 
doctor on leaving one evening impressed upon his wife 
that she was to give her husband every hour just so 
much of the powder as would go on a sixpence. The 
next day he found the man much worse. Had she 
given only the amount of powder that would go on a 
sixpence? "Yes," the good wife answered, "but I had 
no sixpence, and I had five pennies and two hapennies 
and I put the powder on those." 

Education is not a matter of quantity. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Play 

"If children were compelled to submit to the condi- 
tions and processes of most schools during the whole of 
their waking hours for the first twenty years of their 
lives, their physical, mental, and moral development 
would be stunted. The race has been saved by the 
shortness of the school hours and the persistent recupera- 
tive elasticity of the individuality of childhood." 

I offer the above startling quotation from James L. 
Hughes, Inspector of Public Schools, Toronto, Canada. 1 
It is rather startling to be told that our vaunted system 
of education if pushed to the limit would "stunt physical, 
moral, and mental development," and that we are saved 
only because there is an antidote. I quote Inspector 
Hughes again : — 

"The child of the fourth generation brought up in a 
large city is a pathetic study. He is one of the saddest 
sights in the world, because he is almost without the 
instinct of play. Slavery left behind it the evidence of its 
terrible nature in a race of children who do not know how 
to play, from whom the tendency to play has been almost 

1 It is a unique coincidence that in this chapter — the last writing of 
Mr. Gregory — he should have quoted so much from the man who was 
to have the honour of preparing his work for publication. — Editor. 

98 



PLAY 99 

eliminated. Rev. William Gillies, the veteran educator 
of Jamaica, reports that 'one of the greatest difficulties 
to be overcome in the physical, intellectual, and moral 
evolution of the negro race in Jamaica is the fact that the 
children have lost the play spirit.'" 

The thought may cross a layman's mind that the 
school is not the place for play. The fact is, even we 
teachers do not grasp its significance in education as 
we shall in the future. Perhaps an extreme picture may 
help us to catch a glimpse of the truth. What sort of a 
man would that child grow up to be who had never played 
at all, who had never even learned to play ? 

Here are certain phenomena, i. Many children in 
our city do not know how to play, scarcely know the first 
element of play. The play instinct has been crushed out 
by poverty, by a heritage of oppression, by too early 
responsibility. 2. With most children in crowded city 
life many plays are impossible. The streets do not permit 
the freedom which many games require; the concomi- 
tants of brick walls and hard pavements forbid un- 
restrained play. 3. Under the best conditions there are 
many plays which children do not know. Such plays 
are often of a highly educational character. 

Here are the results. I name them in their order as 
they concern our work in the schoolroom, and from the 
bottom up. 

1 . Absence of joy. 2 . Listlessness and apathy. 3 . Ab- 
sence of ambition. 4. Absence of self-activity. 5. Lack 
of the very elements on which interest is based, in 



lOO Ml IKK SCHOOLS 

the school subjects presented for their consideration. 
(». Feeble social instinct such as should lead to helpful- 
ness, kindness. 7. Excessive self Importance. 

No one who has seen a dead reading lesson and has 

looked into the expressionless faces of the children, and 
listened to their meaningless reading, can fail to come 
to the very obvious conclusion that something is the 
matter. There may be various causes, but one of these 

Often is that there is nothing in the child's mind with 

which the ideas of the reading book may be connected. 

But as reading books deal with childish ideas, the cause 
we have thus suggested must be translated thus: the 

class before us is not composed of real children. And 

this may easily be the case. 

Froebel divides human life into infancy, childhood, 

boyhood, youth, and manhood. Let usaccept this classifi- 
cation as sufficiently accurate, and then let us accept also 

his solemn dictum that no one 1 can be what one stage de- 
mands without having lived through the preceding stages. 
1 quote the great educator's exact Language: "The 

boy has not become a boy, nor has a youth become a 

youth, by reaching a certain age, but only by having 

lived through childhood, and further on, through boy 
hood, i me to the requirements oi his mind, his feel- 
ings and his body; similarly, adult man has not become 
an adult man by reaching a certain age, but only by 

faithfully satisfying the requirements oi his childhood, 

boyhood, and youth. The child, the hoy, the man, 
indeed, should know no other endeavor but to be at 



PLAY IOI 

every stage of development wholly what this stage 
calls for. Then will each successive stage spring like a 
new shoot from a healthy bud ; and, at each succes- 
sive stage, he will with the same endeavor again accom- 
plish the requirements of this stage : for only the ade- 
quate development of man at each preceding stage can 
affect and bring about adequate development at each suc- 
ceeding later stage." In other words, if our children 
have not had a childhood, we must give them one. 

Now let us look this proposition fairly in the face. 
Many children never have a real childhood, and many 
others a very incomplete and inadequate childhood. 

It is well to pause at this point and ask ourselves the 
question. " Is it really true that man must not only live 
through, but experience, all the natural periods of life to 
become a perfect adult?" I recall a delightful lecture 
on "Old Age" by my friend, Professor Starbuck, of the 
University of Iowa. In it was this statement: "To 
have a green old age one must have had a happy child- 
hood." Is this true? If the baby did not fondle her 
mother, if the little girl did not play with dolls, if the 
little boy did not run and jump extravagantly, if the high 
school boy never played ball, would the resultant man or 
woman be just as good a product ? Who believes that 
he or she would ? 

But granting the necessity, is school the place for 
play, especially for organized play? 

Now let us remember there are certain things that all 
children do (the exceptions are insignificant), they talk, 



102 BETTER SCHOOLS 

sing, draw, love animals, love beauty, play. This is 
not a complete inventory, but it will do. Let us assume 
that these activities are God's will concerning the child. 
Let us assume also that they are His indications as to the 
child's culture as truly as the fact that cranberries grow 
in a bog is His indication as to the cultivation of that 
fruit. We admit the talking, and we embody language 
in our curriculum. Following the above indications, we 
enter music, drawing, nature study, and art in the same 
curriculum. But what about play? Will the child do 
as well by himself? No one who knows children will 
grant this. He may fail to learn to play, or he may play 
very unintelligently or within narrow limits, or he may 
play immorally. And in any case the long train of 
blessings which follow in the train of organized, directed 
play will be lost. And let it be remembered that organi- 
zation and direction need in no way interfere with spon- 
taneity in play. The opposite is pure assumption. 

But what are these blessings ? 

i. Play is the first self-occupation of the child, and 
therefore it is the awakening of his individuality. The 
failure of our American schools to evoke individuality 
invites a serious and just criticism. We cannot ignore 
any agency that develops initiative. Play is the truest 
form of child self-activity. All that he does in play is 
done in response to his own desire. 

2. Play is peculiarly the child's mode of self-expres- 
sion. Here, at least, he acts with freedom. Thereby 
he comes to know himself and we come to know him. 



PLAY IO3 

" Freedom is characteristic of the lives of birds and 
animals, and of primitive man. It is the very lifeblood 
of play." With this comes a sense of power, a priceless 
possession but one often missing in the child's character. 
And to this must be added faith in one's self. "Step by 
step," says Hughes, "a boy can measure his progress 
among his fellows and relatively compare his strength 
of to-day with his weakness of last year, and at each step 
in advance there comes into his life a consciousness of 
new power." 

3. Hughes says, "The boy is filled with a passionate 
desire to modify the conditions of things. Unfortunately, 
most of us lose this aggressive attitude, which is the foun- 
dation of all progress, as we grow older, and passively 
accept conventional conditions as we find them. Play 
with material things is the highest possible means for 
making an original and intelligent worker." 

4. Play is the child's work. It is not true that love of 
play destroys love of work. The very opposite is true. 
Any one who enters a classroom and sees a class settle 
down to work after a game must give up such a notion. 
The qualities that enter into earnest play are the same 
as those that enter into earnest work. By wise manipu- 
lation these qualities may be transferred to work, and 
this is actually accomplished by many a teacher. 

The qualities just alluded to constitute some of the 
blessings of play. Let us enumerate them : habit of atten- 
tion, power in competition, self-control, energy of charac- 
ter, courage, enthusiasm, independence. 



104 BETTER SCHOOLS 

5. One of the most important results in play is what is 
called motor training. The term means a very simple 
thing. The motor nerves run from the brain to various 
parts of the body, and through them the brain issues its 
commands. If another person commands, the brain re- 
ceives the command and transmits it through the motor 
nerves to the proper activities. But the brain may issue 
its own commands. There are two classes of people 
in the world: those who think and act for themselves, 
and those who act for others. And the teachers of 
the world fall into two classes, depending on which 
product they turn out. The critics say that the bulk 
of our product is composed of those who do not think for 
themselves. 

But in a game the boy who cannot think for himself 
is lost. He must make a multitude of decisions, make 
them quickly, and if he hesitates or errs, it makes no 
difference, he must suffer. His brain must act with 
celerity and his body must respond instantaneously and 
accurately. "No other process," says Hughes, " so 
completely develops the mastery of the mind over the 
body and so fully trains the body to respond perfectly 
to the mind as a good game." 

6. Respect for law and a comprehension of one's relation 
to his fellows constitute another outcome. In play the 
boy is among his equals and there is no other course than 
to respect the rules of the game. Plato said: "If 
children are trained to submit to laws in their plays, the 
love for law enters their souls with the music accompany- 



PLAY 105 

ing their games, never leaves them, and helps them in 
their development." 

But more than this, the boy is a member of a commu- 
nity, a free individual, but bound by obligations. He 
has his own part to play in the game, and he must play 
that part with all his skill or the team loses. This is a 
training in a very simple principle underlying the consti- 
tution of society, a principle that every citizen must 
respect. 

7. Play has another relation to law, of a very important 
character. It prevents lawlessness by providing an 
outlet for the superfluous energy of the child. Many a 
teacher has failed to recognize this elementary principle. 
If she provides a way for the stored-up energy to expend 
itself, it will not expend itself in disorder. But in some 
way it must find an outlet. A game discharges the over- 
charged battery and equilibrium is restored. Mr. Hughes 
put it very truly, " A playing school is easily controlled." 

8. Play is a moral force. Of course "play as a form of 
social conduct is either moral or immoral, just as life 
itself or any other social action is." But under social 
direction play always tends to be a moral force. The 
considerations I have already adduced indicate that, and 
in addition, "play can never be maintained for long or on 
a high level except under conditions of friendliness. Any 
expression of dishonesty or selfishness tends to chill the 
social atmosphere and makes the game flag. Play is 
preeminently social." Froebel considered play a kind 
of religious exercise for children. 



106 BETTER SCHOOLS 

9. One of the important outcomes in play is joy. 
Froebel says it is "the sense of sure and reliable power, the 
sense of its increase both as an individual and as a member 
of the group, that fills the boy with all-pervading, jubilant 
joy during these games." Happiness is not merely a 
desirable condition for children; it is the basis of their 
best work, of their highest activity. It stimulates both 
body and mind. Its absence means apathy, heaviness. 

10. Finally, I quote once more from my friend Mr. 
Hughes. "The weakening self -consciousness of child- 
hood, the most restrictive influence in a child's life, 
is overcome by social intercourse on the playground 
under the stimulating conditions of cooperative effort 
to achieve success." I think it is very easy to miss this 
significance of the catalogue of the blessings of play which 
I have offered in this and in my preceding article. The 
conclusion to be arrived at is not that play is a pleasant 
recreation of childhood for which we ought to make suit- 
able provision, but that it is an essential feature in the 
child's growth toward manhood. It cannot be left out 
without great loss to development, not to the child merely, 
but to the resultant man or woman. We adults look 
on play from our own standpoint, that is to say, from the 
point of view of what it means to us, — recreation ; but 
that is a misleading view. The Springfield Republican 
puts it thus: "Play is the serious work of the child's 
life, and forms the foundation of his future character 
growth and very existence. Nature, realizing its impor- 
tance, clothed it in attractive garb, instilled the instinct 



PLAY 107 

for its indulgence in various advanced forms during the 
different stages of the child's growth, and, following 
naturally ordained lines, there is produced the man or 
woman designed for, and capable of carrying on, their 
work in the progress of the world. Without knowing it, 
the amused child may be taught to develop self-control, 
to love and adhere to law and duty, to be generous to his 
fellow-playmates; in a word, the playground child be- 
comes a good and desirable citizen without perceiving the 
process. If 'the child without a playground is father to 
the man without a job,' and 'the man without a job is 
father to the man without a country,' the status of the 
city which fails to supply to its growing citizens an ade- 
quate number of playtime spaces is easily fixed." 

A study of the conditions of childhood, especially in 
the less favored portions of our community, but really in 
all classes, convinced me long ago that the great enemy of 
the teacher is the apathy of school children. If a child's 
mind is asleep in the classroom, if he will not wake up 
and seize the privileges offered, it is idle to offer the 
privileges. Under such conditions the teacher may go 
through the motions of teaching, but education is at a 
standstill. In some cases, in view of the unfortunate 
previous history and present environment, the passive, 
listless attitude of the children gives one the impression 
of hopelessness. 

With this state of things in view I inaugurated, several 
years ago, experiments in organized play in the school 
buildings to rouse children to an interest in themselves 



108 BETTER SCHOOLS 

and the world around them. The children of the 
primary departments of several schools were to be 
brought together regularly and in groups, for games in 
each school. They were also, as far as possible, to be 
taken out on walks to parks and shops to awaken their 
interest in a new world. This was the experimental stage. 

In one school, through the months of December, 
January, February, March, and part of April, the hall was 
in almost constant use for three days each week. Two 
classes — ( i oo pupils) — occupied the hall at a time. The 
classes were grouped by related grades so that the social 
side, or spirit of entertaining, might be introduced to this 
class of pupils who so need it. 

Pupils were first taught to form a circle without assist- 
ance. Songs were sung, and exercises given to music. 
The exercises were to teach grace, concentration, and 
application, as no verbal directions were given. These 
exercises were greatly enjoyed by all classes. Next came 
complete relaxation and rest, after which came directed 
activity in ball or bean-bag games of various kinds. Then, 
for a moment or two came another rest period, after which 
plays selected by the children were used. Every class 
marched by twos and fours, and the older ones by 
eights. I believe in a great deal of music, and in the 
absence of the nervous haste that is common among this 
class of people. 

In another school, although the time taken for play was 
entirely outside of school time, yet the average attend- 
ance was thirty-seven out of a class of forty-eight. The 



PLAY 109 

number never fell below thirty. They played catch with 
bean bags and balls, ring bean bag, drop the bean bag, 
squirrel, bounce ball, birds in the nest, pigeon house, 
bull in the ring, going to Paris, London Bridge, " In and 
out the windows," " Five little chicadees," and " As I 
was going down the street." They practiced marching. 

As a result, I think we demonstrated the truth of two 
propositions: first, that children need a childhood in 
order that they may be educated ; second, that the child- 
hood may be measurably supplied when it is lacking. 
The experiment was a success. The children learned how 
to play, and many of them did not know how to play 
before. The expression and manner of the children 
brightened conspicuously. The effect was seen in their 
daily work, and in the course of a couple of years 
there seemed to come an entire change of attitude on the 
part of the children toward their work. They seemed 
to show the real characteristics, the instincts and loves of 
childhood. 

Finally, the introduction of dramatic representation 
into the reading lessons of the pupils always results in a 
great love for this kind of play. It is very simple. The 
story of the lesson, or any other story, is acted by 
the pupils in groups very much after the manner of the 
old-fashioned dialogue, but with much more action and 
almost no formality. It is practically play. The piece 
is not rehearsed to make it a show piece. Its educative 
possibilities are exhausted and a new one takes its place. 
Dramatic reading and dramatic action are an application 



HO BETTER SCHOOLS 

of the self-activity of the child to expression. The basal 
conception of their work is that the child shall look upon 
expression from the point of view of the first person rather 
than of the third, and the difficult thing in teaching is to 
get him to look at his studies from the standpoint of 
the first person. 

In all this, which takes but little time, there is an 
appeal to the principles that underlie the play instinct. 
I think that few teachers will claim that the five minutes 
thus expended would be better expended on arithmetic. 
On the contrary, a five-minute game and a twenty-five 
minute exercise in arithmetic are worth more in the 
interest of arithmetic than a thirty-minute arithmetic 
exercise without the game. 

Groos says, "Animals do not play because they are 
young, but rather have a period of infancy in order that 
they may play." This is even more true of children. 
If the school should be an institution for the develop- 
ment of the child's power — not merely for knowledge 
storing — it cannot fully achieve its purpose without 
providing the best possible opportunities for play. 



CHAPTER IX 
Popular Criticisms of Schools 

There are at least three broad criticisms made by the 
public on our schools. By our schools I mean the schools 
of the United States. First : " There are too many things 
taught, and the essentials, so called, are slighted." Sec- 
ond : " The teaching does not meet the needs of the times, 
and especially tends to a want of respect for labor." 
Third : " The class of young people turned out are not a 
practical, efficient class ; they are wanting in gumption, 
have little application and sense of responsibility." 

These are only the criticisms from the lay public outside 
of the ranks of educators. From within those ranks come 
the same criticisms in a modified form, and a host of 
others of which the public knows nothing. These criti- 
cisms are very interesting. It would be just as foolish 
to deny them entirely as to admit them entirely. Let us 
look at them : 

First : " The schools teach too many things and the 
essentials are slighted." There is one curious and rather 
amusing assumption that looms up at the outset when we 
examine this criticism at short range. It is assumed as 
a fact that does not need proof that formerly the essen- 
tials were taught well or at least better than they are now. 



112 BETTER SCHOOLS 

Formerly, we drilled on these essentials and of course we 
had success ; nowadays we have the child studying so 
much that, of course, the essentials must be neglected. 

This is the statement of the critics. Now the principal 
trouble with this statement is that "it isn't so." We did 
dwell on the essentials in the good old days ; but we got 
no better, but rather worse, results than we get now. To 
support this proposition we do not have to rely on the 
untrustworthy and often partial memories of the people 
who make this claim. Fortunately, written results of 
former days are still accessible and are easily examined. 
Let us look at some of them. They are instructive and 
entertaining. 

One of the most interesting and recent discussions of 
the " three R's" appeared in a little pamphlet reprinted 
mostly from the Springfield Republican in 1905, entitled, 
"The Springfield Tests." 

In 1890 there were discovered in the attic of the 
high school building in Springfield, Massachusetts, 
several old sets of examination papers that had been 
written in the fall of 1846. These papers consisted of 
printed questions in geography and arithmetic, with 
answers written on the printed sheets, and written tests 
in spelling and penmanship. Mr. Parish, the second 
principal of the Springfield High School, gave these exam- 
inations to his pupils. They were placed in the hands 
of Superintendent Balliet of Springfield and preserved 
by him in his safe. 

Two of these tests, spelling and arithmetic, were 



POPULAR CRITICISMS OF SCHOOLS 113 

given to about two hundred and fifty ninth-grade pupils 
of the local schools of Springfield in March, 1905, and the 
results were carefully compared with the results of the 
tests of 1846. The children of five schools took part in 
the examination. The papers were sent to the directing 
principal and he examined and marked, according to a 
uniform standard, the papers of the new and the old tests. 
The following are the results : 



Spelling : 


1846 


1905 


Number of pupils who took tests, 


85 


245 


Average per cent correct, 


40.6 


5i.2 


Arithmetic : 






Number of pupils who took test, 


79 


245 


Average per cent correct, 


29.4 


65.S 



Of the class of 1846, only sixteen of the eighty-five pupils 
stood as high as 70 per cent in this spelling test, the 
present " passing" mark in most schools. Three pupils 
had no words spelled correctly ; nine had only one right ; 
while twenty-four, or more than one fourth of the entire 
class, misspelled seventeen or more words. 

The word heiress was spelled in the following ways by 
the pupils of 1846, — heirress, hurriss, heirruis, heirees, 
heirness, hioress, heress, hirresa, hereis, airress, airess, 
airest, airresst, airhess, arress, arris, arriss, ariest, areress, 
arerest, eirress. 

A little geography spelling is also interesting ; Agasta, 
Bristle, SufTork, Midlesex, Esexx, Berkshiere, Eirie, 
Ontareio, Mane, Vamont, Rodiland, Connetticut, Corne- 
dicut, Newjessy, Pencilvany, Mishegan, Mysurie, Misury. 



114 BETTER SCHOOLS 

In arithmetic I select the first two examples, i. Add 
together the following numbers : Three thousand and 
nine, twenty-nine, one, three hundred and one, sixty-one, 
sixteen, seven hundred, two, nine thousand, nineteen 
and a half, one and a half. 2. Multiply 10,008 by 8009. 

Mr. Riley (principal Central Street Grammar School, 
Springfield), who conducted the examination and wrote 
the pamphlet, says with absolute truth that the above 
examples, requiring only abstract number work, are of the 
kind in which the "schools of our fathers" are supposed 
to have given that incessant drill in which the modern 
school is said to be lacking ; but only 44 per cent of the 
class had the first example correct, and even in the sec- 
ond, where the only chance for a mistake was in the actual 
multiplying, 37 per cent, or more than one third of the 
class, were wrong. Again in the fifth, another abstract 
example, "What is one third of 175I ? " for which the drill 
method should have prepared the pupils, only 36 per cent 
of the class had the answer correct. The answers to this 
example varied from 5J to 6312. 

The eighth example was : "What is the simple interest 
of $1200 for 12 y., n m., 2Q d. ? " There are twenty- 
seven incorrect answers recorded, varying from $93.28 
to 1 1038980000, whatever the last number may mean. 
The comparison of the papers in geography and pen- 
manship is equally to the credit of the Springfield 
pupils of 1005. 

It must be clearly borne in mind, of course, that my 
contention at the present time is not that our arith- 



POPULAR CRITICISMS OF SCHOOLS I15 

metic and spelling are good enough, but that they have 
not suffered by the " enrichment of the course of study," 
to use the recognized form of description. I hope to 
show that they ought to have gained by virtue of this 
very enrichment. It is only too true that these essential 
studies are in many places in our country not what they 
should be. The causes are very interesting, and it ought 
not to be hard to remove them. But the treatment is 
not quite so simple as some of the critics of the public 
school hastily assume. 

Mr. George H. Martin, secretary of the Massachusetts 
State Board of Education, writes in his report of 1905- 
1906: "Many people imagine a golden age somewhere 
in the past when everybody habitually spelled correctly." 
He might have added, a critic remarks, "When every- 
body ciphered accurately and read fluently." 

This criticism does serious harm to education by 
alienating public sympathy, and in some places even 
causing the withholding of proper material support for 
the schools. 

In my library is an interesting little book, which bears 
the rather alarming title, "Artificial Production of 
Stupidity in Schools." It was written forty years ago and 
appeared in England in the Journal of Psychology. 
It was a serious attempt to explain the reasons for 
the failure of the schools to develop intelligence. It 
claims that stupidity is a universal fact. At present I 
desire merely to refer briefly to the statements in the 
volume as to the condition of education in England forty 



Il6 BETTER SCHOOLS 

years ago. They read wonderfully like the criticisms of 
the present day. 

The author says very seriously, but with an ironical 
flavor, "With the exception of being, perhaps, able to 
read with labor, and to write with difficulty, the pupils 
must not be expected, six months after leaving school, to 
possess any trace of their 'education' beyond an invig- 
orated sensorium and a stunted intelligence." 

The writer of the book from which I have been quoting, 
quotes her Majesty's Inspector, Rev. W. J. Kennedy, as 
follows: "I think there is truth in the statement that 
those who leave our national schools deteriorate intellec- 
tually rather than improve." 

Again: "Upon testing the educational customs of the 
present day by even the most elementary principles of 
psychology, it becomes apparent that a large number of 
children receive precisely the kind of training that has 
been bestowed upon a learned pig." He subsequently 
explains what he means by the above statement: As 
educated pigs nod their heads, or stand on their hind 
feet in response to certain noises, so children make correct 
answers without comprehending the meaning of the 
answer or of the question. As an illustration he quotes 
Rev. Mr. Brookfield, another Inspector. Mr. Brookfield 
states in his official report for 1855-1856 that he called 
upon two children, aged about 11 years, "who did their 
arithmetic and reading tolerably well, who wrote some- 
thing pretty legible, intelligible, and sensible about 
an omnibus and a steamboat," to write down the answers 



POPULAR CRITICISMS OF SCHOOLS 117 

of the Church catechism to two questions. It must be 
observed that they had been accustomed to repeat the 
Catechism during half an hour of each day, in day school 
and in Sunday school, for four or five years, and the fol- 
lowing is what one wrote : 

"My dooty tords my Nabers to love him as thyself 
and to do to all men as I wed thou shall do and to me to 
love onner and suke my farther and mother to onner and 
to bay the queen and all that are pet in a forty under her 
to smit myself to all my goones teaches sportial pastures 
and marsters to oughten mysilf lordly and every to all 
my betters to hut no body by would or deed to be trew 
in jest in all deelins to beer no malis no ated in your 
arts to keep my ands from pecking and steel my turn 
from evil speak and lawing and slanders not to civet 
desar othermans good but to lern laber trewly to get my 
own leaving and to do my dooty in that state if life 
and to each it his please god to call men." The answer 
of the other boy is similar but I cannot spare the space 
for it. 

I must limit myself to one more group of testimony 
bearing on the alleged superiority of the methods of 
teaching in the past. This time I choose a period 
slightly nearer to our own than in the preceding two 
cases. A committee of the Norfolk County Massa- 
chusetts Committees' Association was appointed at the 
fall meeting in 1878, for the purpose of examining the 
children throughout the county who had been four 
years, and those who had been eight years, in school. 



Il8 BETTER SCHOOLS 

Mr. George A. Walton, agent of the Massachusetts 
State Board of Education, was invited by the committee 
to act for them, and detailed by the State Board for the 
purpose. He prepared for the test with the greatest care, 
and presented the results with skill. The general plan 
of the examination was approved by several persons of 
experience, to whom it was referred before being applied 
in the schools. The examinations lasted about six 
months. The results of his task were published in 
1880 in a report of 128 pages. It attracted wide atten- 
tion. 

The number of pupils in the primary grade examined 
was 2866; in the grammar grade, 2095; total, 4961. 
The ages in the former case varied from 8 \ to iof; 
in the latter, from 12 \ to 15J. The number of towns 
examined was 24. 

From the summary of percentages I present the follow- 
ing figures. I confine myself to the grammar pupils. 
Considering arithmetic, the average per cent in column 
addition for the entire county was 65.7. Ten towns 
of the 24 fell below 60 per cent. The example demanded 
was the addition in column of eleven items, each con- 
taining three orders of units. (Time allowed was five 
minutes.) There is not a good modern class anywhere of 
the given grade but would be ashamed of such a result, 
even if the time were reduced to two minutes. 

In multiplication and division the average of the county 
was 68.8. In simple interest the average was 42.9 per 
cent. Nineteen towns out of 24 were below 60 per cent. 



POPULAR CRITICISMS OF SCHOOLS 119 

In the example, the principal consisted of dollars (four 
places), the time from August 20 to December 5 of the 
same year, the rate 8 or 9 per cent ; the interest being 
required. 

The percentages in written expression, penmanship, 
capitals, and punctuation and spelling were respectively 
64, 52, 49, and 62. In written expression only three towns 
were above 70 (a low passing mark) ; in penmanship, one; 
in capitals and punctuation, one ; in spelling, five. 

So much for figures. The observations of Mr. Walton 
on the results are far more interesting. He speaks in 
the most guarded and considerate way, but it is evident 
that he believed the showing as a whole to be some- 
thing very bad. 

Mr. Walton's statement that the ability to express 
thoughts upon paper is an important practical end to 
be aimed at in the schools, is a very modest one ; but 
throughout the test, he says : " Very many of both grades 
gave evidence that they had never been taught even 
the mechanical part of any composition exercise; their 
spelling was poor, capitals were wholly wanting, and no 
punctuation was attempted; there was no idea of the 
arrangement of parts of the letter or of the narrative. 
The pupils of some schools, after the materials were 
placed in their hands and ttie directions were given, sat 
in apparent amazement, as if the most unreasonable 
demand had been made upon them. To some, indeed, 
the directions were at first incomprehensible and had 
to be many times repeated. Again, among the papers 



120 BETTER SCHOOLS 

taken in the upper grade, there are many in which the 
pupils show a clear appreciation of the story, and good 
judgment in seizing upon and arranging the important 
incidents of the narrative; and yet the style is poor, 
the expressions are ungrammatical, the writing is 
cramped, and all that relates, to the mechanical execu- 
tion shows faulty or neglected early training." 

The following, taken from the samples of work pre- 
sented in Mr. Walton's report, may illustrate his stric- 
tures. There are many such given. 

"Cyphus the Prince of Persia he and another boy 
went out to walk he had a long coat on which was too 
big for him the other boy had a coat which was to small for 
him and only came down to his middle, and he wanted 
the little boy to let him take his coat (and the big boy) 
woud let him take his little coat so Cyphus father came 
and said why wood you not let him take the big coat 
and he wood take the little coat so he went home and 
he become a prince." 

The spelling of three selected words by children 
from 8§ to io| years of age pans out thus: "which," 
69; "whose," 54; "scholar," 44.8. "Whose" was 
spelled in 108 ways, "which" in 54, and "scholar" in 221. 

In the matter of reading, the report states that: "In 
the larger number of primary schools, the teachers seem 
to regard the expression of thought as not within the 
province of the young pupil ; there were many pupils in 
both grades, but particularly in the primary, who called off 
the words in a droning and monotonous way, or shouted 



POPULAR CRITICISMS OF SCHOOLS 121 

them out one after the other with as little regard to the 
thought as if they had been the columns of a spelling 
book." Mr. Walton says: "So far as I could discover, 
with rare exceptions, little attention is given to what the 
children read, or to reading for the acquisition of knowl- 
edge, if we leave out of account the text of books com- 
mitted to memory for recitation. The time of reading 
in both grades seems to be mostly occupied in teaching 
to call the word properly, without reference to the amount 
or kind of knowledge the pupil is to acquire." 

As to penmanship, the report says: "The writing in 
many schools is limited to what is done in the copybooks ; 
the copy at the top of the page is written again and again, 
sometimes with a wider departure from the original at 
each repetition. No attention is given to the movement 
of the hand or arm, or to the forms; and very rarely, 
so far as I could discover, are the muscles trained to make 
movements with rapidity. This, I incline to think, is a 
universal failure in the schools." 

Finally, as to arithmetic, note the following state- 
ment: "To one who has not been used to seeing simi- 
lar results elsewhere, the failure in the simple operations 
is perhaps the most surprising thing in the examination. 
There were but nine items given for addition in the 
primary, and but eleven in the grammar grade, with a 
total average of 56 per cent. Why should not 80 or 90 
per cent of all the answers be correct?" 

Mr. Walton indicates that the state of things in Nor- 
folk County was a general state of things elsewhere, 



122 BETTER SCHOOLS 

and not in the least surprising. These pupils ought 
to have done better, but he would have been surprised 
if they had. Now all who knew Mr. Walton knew that 
he was a wise, considerate man, with advanced ideals. 
His discussions in the report I am considering read like 
prophecy. They embody many principles which modern 
pedagogy has since adopted. He knew his ground, and 
his statement is worth taking. 

As to the amount of work done in the schools, Mr. 
Walton found that many of the pupils had really made 
little advancement. " The pupils of the grammar grades 
were far apart in respect to the work attempted, some 
who had been eight years in school having advanced 
but little beyond the fundamental operations, while 
others had only reached fractional numbers, and yet 
others had gone through the arithmetic required for 
admission to the high school. In a few cases the tests 
for the primary grade, with the example in division or 
with a simple example in fractions, were submitted to the 
grammar grade, and found to be fully up to their attain- 
ments." 

Perhaps the most significant and amusing fact in 
connection with this report is that it alarmed the country 
at large. A suspicion haunted most superintendents 
that if their work had been thus remorselessly examined, 
it would have come out little better. Unconsciously, 
they felt that it was a portrait of the general state of 
education at the time, a revelation of what could be 
found anywhere for the trying. 



POPULAR CRITICISMS OF SCHOOLS 1 23 

I have not ventured to go so far back as Horace Mann. 
The picture he draws of the condition of things in 1838 
is very dark. His picture of Massachusetts education 
at that time is appalling. 

A rejoinder may be offered : What proof have we that 
the present is better ? That is a fair question, but it is 
not the present question, which is this : Were not former 
days better ? The answer is emphatically : No. The 
system of to-day is immeasurably ahead of the school sys- 
tem of the past. The growth has been steady. What- 
ever may be said against the "enrichment" of the course 
of study, its " frills and fads," the contention that the 
essentials, so-called, have suffered in comparison with the 
past, falls flat. It does not follow that these essentials 
are taught as well as they should be yet. Perhaps 
they should have advanced more ; perhaps they would 
have advanced more but for the "frills and fads" afore- 
said. This is an open question. But no argument to 
that effect can be based on the superiority of the schools 
of the past. That is not an open question. 

In the matter of the "three r's," granting that the past 
has no superiority over the present, the objector who still 
claims that the essentials are not properly considered 
has a right to press his objection. These essentials 
may indeed be better taught than in the past; but are 
they taught well enough ? And specifically, if they are 
not taught well enough, is the introduction of the newer 
studies, the so-called "frills," responsible? 

To both questions the answer must be "No." The 



124 BETTER SCHOOLS 

essentials are not taught as well as they should be, but 
the newer studies are not responsible for that fact. Let 
it be borne in mind that I am speaking of the country 
as a whole. 

But this admission regarding the teaching of the essen- 
tials must be variously construed. For in some places 
the teaching of the essentials leaves little to be desired, 
while in others the subjects are taught badly. 

At the outset it is assumed that the introduction of 
the " extras" reduces the time to be spent on the regulars. 
This is only partly true. Nature study, for example, is 
one of these extras. Let us say that fifteen minutes a 
day is given to this study. But why may not the reading 
lesson occasionally be about nature ? And again, inas- 
much as we have to read about nature, if we are going to 
study it very much, why are we not, in so doing, improv- 
ing our class in reading ? Reading is the leader of the 
" three r's." Perfection in reading is purely a matter of 
practice. It makes no difference whether the child reads 
from a reading book or from the nature study book or a 
history, as long as he reads matter within his comprehen- 
sion. There is no particular inspiration enveloping the 
reading book. 

Or his nature investigations may be made the basis of 
his language work and of his compositions. He must 
write on something, and the teacher must guide him in 
securing this something. Why may not the something 
be found in nature interests, among other things ? 

Such correlations are entirely possible, and they are 



POPULAR CRITICISMS OF SCHOOLS 1 25 

numerous. They represent a great saving of time and 
they are very modern. And they represent this very 
important principle too : That the education of the child 
requires for healthy mental growth just such an inter- 
locking of subjects. 

But again, may not the new subjects have a tonic 
effect on the old ? Is it not possible to think of the work 
in the old subjects as being done in shorter time and more 
effectively by reason of the additions to the course of 
study ? Let us see. 

First : The spirit, the attitude of the child is of the 
greatest importance. Stating it simply, a child who wants 
to know will learn far more than a child who does not want 
to know. Indeed, to put this proposition in a striking 
light, if the teacher could secure on the part of his boys 
as much enthusiasm in arithmetic as they show in 
baseball, he would accomplish wonders. But generally 
he cannot. His deadliest foe in the classroom is apathy, 
lack of interest. Now one of the facts about the modern 
school is that it is interesting. It owes this interest 
partly to a better comprehension of children, and conse- 
quently to a better selection of methods, but partly 
also to the fact that the course is richer and appeals to 
more sides of the child's nature. Because school is 
more interesting, because it touches life at so many 
points, the child is more self-active, and less forcing is 
necessary. In these days more than ever before the 
child wants to learn; and this applies to arithmetic as 
well as to anything else. 



126 BETTER SCHOOLS 

Music is an interesting illustration just here, and easily 
enforces the foregoing line of thought. For music is 
the prince of frills. It is charged with being the least 
practical of all subjects. Let argument on that assump- 
tion wait for awhile. But here let us remember this 
rather important fact. Just because music is in the 
schools, school is a happier place. Imagine its complete 
absence. And then remember that everybody works 
best when he is happiest. 

Second : I quote my friend, Superintendent Riley of 
Holyoke, who wrote "The Springfield Tests." He says, 
"Few people, except educators, have considered the 
possibility of improving the work in any study by 
decreasing the time and increasing the concentration of 
the child and the skill of the teacher. Few people have 
endeavored seriously to find out to what extent such 
subjects as manual training and drawing, through 
correlation, clinch facts in arithmetic, — or how far spell- 
ing is improved by broadening the child's knowledge 
through a greater variety of reading matter or through 
such a branch as nature study." 

I offer an interesting illustration. At the Hyannis, 
Massachusetts, Normal School, they spend not a little 
time in gardening, in raising eggs, and in building 
structures made necessary by these and other industrial 
activities. Now here is a serious invasion of the time 
sacred, say, to arithmetic. Not so ; arithmetic is cor- 
related throughout. The size of the plots affords 
opportunities for area calculation. The mensuration 



POPULAR CRITICISMS OF SCHOOLS 1 27 

tables come in in the lumber work ; calculations of all sorts 
and of the most practical kind are possible. The value of 
lumber, of nails, of time enters. The value of garden prod- 
ucts, fertilizers, etc., the value of the ground itself, these 
are parts of the arithmetic. All banking business made 
necessary by the financial transactions supposed, the de- 
positing of money, the drawing of checks, etc., is taught. 

Now there is a curious fact concerning arithmetic taught 
in this way. It sticks. It gives arithmetical power. And 
it is equally curious that the examples in the arithmetic 
have no such sticking quality. At any rate, it takes much 
more time and effort to get the same result with the 
arithmetic textbook than it does with the lumber pile. 

The special applications of the improvement in the char- 
acter of the work done in the schools and of the shorten- 
ing of the time necessary to get good results as a result 
of correlation meet us at every turn in the school course. 

Third : There is a rather inviting field of discussion 
relating to this subject that is very little understood. Dr. 
Luther Gulick of New York puts the basal thought in 
this interesting way. He says: "If I exercise my right 
arm vigorously for three months, and do not exercise 
my left arm, I will find at the end of that time that my 
right arm has greatly increased in power. But I will 
find that my left arm has also increased in power ; not 
so much as the right arm, but some. The power accumu- 
lating in my right arm overflows to my left." This is an 
illustration of a universal law. If I exercise any faculty, 
I not only gain much power for that faculty, but I gain 



128 BETTER SCHOOLS 

some power for other faculties. This law, the late 
Frank A. Hills, secretary of the State Board of Education, 
calls "The Law of the Gracious Overflow." The desig- 
nation is as felicitous as it is poetic. 

Now to be specific. Every time I awaken in a child 
a real enthusiasm for music, for example, so that he is 
willing to work hard over it, that enthusiasm overflows 
to other subjects, or rather it can be manipulated so 
that it will overflow. If I develop an additional en- 
thusiasm for drawing, for history, for nature study, I 
have similar overflows. The other studies profit, among 
them the "three r's." This has been the actual course 
of things. Many a boy has been aroused from his 
lethargy by awakened interest in frogs or beetles or some 
fact of nature. His mind has awakened, and in due 
time the balance of his normal interests come to life. 
That this has not been the process more frequently 
is because teachers do not know the principle. When a 
teacher grasps that principle, his power receives a 
sudden and inspiring accession. 

These considerations sum up the matter. The propo- 
sition is this : So far from weakening the teaching of the 
old essentials, the enrichment of the course of study must, 
within certain limitations, bring about better results 
than would be possible without it. And this, I think, has 
been the result. 

But is there any end to this enrichment ? May not the 
process of introducing new material be continued so far 
that the course becomes overloaded, becomes, perhaps, 



POPULAR CRITICISMS OF SCHOOLS 1 29 

impossible ? Alas, yes. And the state of things assumed 
in the question is sometimes a reality. But is that not 
what has happened to all good things ? The contention 
that the enrichment of the course of study necessarily 
impairs the basal work cannot be maintained. On the 
other hand, I think it is clear from the foregoing argu- 
ment that a reasonable and judicious enrichment must 
result in greatly improved work in the fundamental 
studies. In other words, to get the very poorest results 
possible in the "three r's," it is only necessary to limit 
the teaching to those "r's." 

One query yet remains to be considered, and is respect- 
fully offered to such parties as believe, in spite of what 
we have submitted, that the new subjects do overload 
the course. The query is this : What about the over- 
loading under the older and more restricted courses of 
study? What about the greatest common divisor and 
the least common multiple, which everybody has studied, 
but which no human being ever uses or ever did use? 
What about allegation medial, complex fractions, duo-deci- 
mals, and a vast number of operations useful enough to a 
few, but of no possible value to most people. Real arith- 
metical power was not developed by teaching such sub- 
jects, so much time may be saved by omitting them. If 
real arithmetical power is developed, the individual easily 
learns the special arithmetic that is necessary in his partic- 
ular business, so that other departments of arithmetic, such 
as partnership, partial payments, etc., may be omitted in 
school and more time may be saved for the new subjects. 



CHAPTER X 

Music, Literature, and Drawing as Elements 
of Character 

The last word has not been said even if we have been 
successful in proving that the so-called "frills " of public 
school instruction are not responsible for the shortcomings 
of the so-called essentials, or even if we could prove that 
the " frills" are responsible for the improvement of 
the essentials. There yet remains one proposition to 
be demonstrated, a proposition of the greatest moment. 

The proposition is this: The newer subjects of the 
school course are of great importance in themselves ; they 
are also "essential" subjects if any subjects are to be 
dignified with this term. Indeed, from some points of 
view they are more essential than some phases of the 
orthodox essentials. 

Let us look for awhile at the most obviously ornamental 
and therefore, in the opinion of some, the least practical 
of the "fancy" additions to the course of study. I am 
speaking of music. The defense of this subject will imply 
the defense of a number of "unpractical" subjects. 

Now music may be defended in various ways. It 
increases the happiness of school life. Its scientific 
phases involve a mental discipline not unlike that given 
by mathematics. The rapid reading of music requires 

130 



MUSIC, LITERATURE, AND DRAWING 131 

alertness, nice estimates of pitch and rhythm, quick 
decision. These are excellent qualities to go into the 
make-up of a child's character. Music is harmonizing, 
refining. Finally, music leads to several modes of mak- 
ing a living. 

But these apologies for music do not touch the fun- 
damental explanation of its place as an integral element 
of a school curriculum at public expense. This reason 
relates to the very foundations of the social and moral 
life, and therefore to the existence of society itself. 

It is usually and hastily taken for granted that the 
exclusive business of public education is to train the 
child to make a living. But is this so ? What about 
the hours of leisure ? Has education anything to do with 
them ? For the hours of leisure are the hours of temp- 
tation. In business, business necessity surrounds the 
employee with restrictions that measurably safeguard 
his honesty. But when five o'clock comes, when he lays 
down his pen or takes off his apron, when he becomes 
his own master, when he has the absolute power to do 
right or wrong as he pleases, then temptations come in 
as a flood. 

He goes to his home or his boarding place, and de- 
cides on the pleasures of the evening. Now comes the 
important question. What preparation has been made in 
his school days for these hours of pleasure ? His parents 
and the church have given him counsel, but that is not 
enough. Who has prepared him to prefer high pleasures 
to low? Who has prepared him to understand high 



1 3 ! 



BETTER SCHOOLS 



pleasures? Specifieally, what kind of music shall he 
seek this evening? For music of some kind is offered 
on all hands. Questionable places offer music; places of 
unspeakable vice offer music; the church offers music; 
refined homes offer music; the oratorio, the symphony, 
the opera offer music. It is too Late to make preparation 
now. As far as music is concerned, he will go where he 
can find what he can understand. If he seek the low, the 
pleasures that go with it will be Low, the associates will 

be low. 

Thus music vaults into a high position as the arbiter 
of his pleasures. It becomes a moral force of great 
power. It ought not to require argument to show that 
the pleasures of a people are an index of their character. 
We recall the famous saying, "If 1 can write the songs 
of a nation, I care not who makes their laws." That 
is a profoundly philosophical statement. Music controls 
emotion, and emotion controls action. One of the recent 
doctrines of practical psychology is the dominance of 
the emotions. And in education that truth means just 
this: It is idle to train the intellect and to Leave the emo- 
tions fallow; if you fail to train the emotions, the emo- 
tional nature does not die; il simply takes on another 
character. And the character and intensity of our emo- 
tional nature control our living. 

Of course, it is not claimed that music will save the 
boy. But it gives him one more chance. He will not 
seek the chamber concert or the oratorio or the singing 
social in a home of high refinement if he cannot under- 



MUSIC, LITERATURE, AND DRAWING 1 33 

stand that music. It is true thai he may not seek su< It 
music even if he can understand it, but his tendency will 
be to seek it. Of course many other elements of his early 
preparation as well as his later acquisitions and his pres- 
ent environment determine his choice of pleasures. But 
so far as music is an element in the choice it is almost 
certain to act in accordance with the boy's musical 
character, so to speak, — a character that has already 
been formed. 

Now what is true of music is true of literature. Some 
one has said, " It is of doubtful advantage to teach a boy 
to read and not to teach him what to read.' 1 The press 
constantly traces crime back to habits of reading, to 
the "penny dreadful." Our own experience justifies the 
inference. Hut if reading may lead down, why not up? 
Why may not. a careful training in the wise selection 
of books and toward the love of good books result in 
definite preference for the pure, the worthy, the help- 
ful, the ennobling in literature? And if this taste keeps 
a young man in the house to read " Ivanhoe " rather than 
to go to a low musical comedy, it has helped in his 
salvation. 

Drawing may be thought of also in the same.- way. It 
is true that drawing is to be defended also on other 
grounds. But its influence in training the artistic 
nature is essentially moral, for it tends to control the 
individual's pleasures. I have no time to answer the 
contention that high art may be impure. Ruskin 
has answered that. It is as clear as noonday that the 



134 BETTER SCHOOLS 

tendency at least of high art is away from the sordid, 
the commonplace, the degrading. It is away from the 
coarse, comic post card, away from the tawdry ornament, 
and toward the upper world, the world of beauty where 
one may associate with those who believe with Plato that 
" Beauty is the splendor of truth." For, says Sidney 
Lanier, "Not only is there a ' beauty of holiness,' but 
there is also a holiness of beauty." 

But time would fail me to speak of nature study, of 
history, and geography, and physical culture. In each 
of these there is an additional reason for its presence in the 
school course, but there is also, and ranking very high as 
a reason, the fact that these studies have to do with the 
pleasures of life, therefore with its temptations. 

Picture an extreme case : a boy who does not love music 
or art or literature or poetry, or little children, who are 
part of the poetry of life. Consider that all the avenues 
to his higher nature are closed up. Whence must his 
pleasures come? Through the avenues of sense; and 
therefore they must be the pleasures of sense. Is that a 
hopeful moral outlook ? But the extreme case illustrates 
the law that in so far as the avenues to the higher life are 
closed up, those of sense must take their place. There 
come to us the lines from Young's "Night Thoughts," 
a picture of materialism. 

" Sense, take the rein, 
Blind Passion, drive us on, 
And Ignorance befriend us on our way. 
Ye last but truest patrons of our race. 



MUSIC, LITERATURE, AND DRAWING 135 

So live the brute, since like the brute we die. 
The sum of man, of Godlike man, 
To revel and to rot." 

"A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the 
things that he possesseth." There is something of im- 
portance in this world besides making a living. It is 
living a life. And all history emphasizes the proposition 
that a people's vitality has a direct relation to the 
character of its pleasures. We cannot shut our eyes to 
this great sociological truth. If we do not prepare our 
children to choose their pleasures rightly, we shall repeat 
in our own history the awful, unspeakable social story, 
and the inglorious end of Rome and of Antioch of Syria. 



CHAPTER XI 

Arithmetic 

It is time to drop that word "essentials," as referring 
to any subject in the school curriculum. The term is an 
assumption, and I have temporarily conceded the assump- 
tion merely to put certain truths in plain light. The 
idea of essentials and non-essentials is a fiction, and it 
is time to consider this fiction from the standpoint of 
everyday, workaday life. 

Just for a moment, let us remember that even in think- 
ing of the workaday life, in the preparation of the boy 
or girl to take his part in its serious affairs, we cannot 
ignore the moral. For if it were possible to thoroughly 
evoke the moral nature, if we could make our boys true 
to duty, to their own responsibility, to their parents, to 
their neighbors, to themselves, the hardest tasks of the 
teacher would disappear. Teaching is difficult not 
merely because children cannot learn, but also because 
they do not desire to learn. 

But, approaching the question of education fairly from 
the utilitarian side, let us ask a question. Why do we 
educate a boy at all ? The answer is simple : we educate 
him that he may accomplish his destiny in the world ; 
that he may do all for which his endowment fits him. 
But this is not the same thing as saying that we educate 

136 



ARITHMETIC 137 

him in order that he may be filled with facts. For many 
facts may be of no possible use to him, however much 
they may be of use to others; other facts, moreover, 
are difficult for him now, but will be easy, in a year, or two, 
or three. Some facts, again, are of no use to anybody. 
Certain facts he must have, but even these are of little 
value unless they enter into and become a part of his 
life. Facts are like food: it is not the quantity, but 
the assimilation, that counts. And in school, it is not the 
study, but its reaction upon the individual, that is of su- 
preme importance. Let us make this proposition clear by 
applying it to some of the subjects in the course of study. 
To grasp it means a revolution in our views of education. 

Let us begin with that venerable and halo-encircled 
"r," arithmetic. The application of the above proposi- 
tion to this subject means this: It is not a matter 
of importance how much arithmetic a boy learns, but 
what sort of an arithmetician he becomes. So far as 
that subject is concerned, what he wants is just enough 
to enable him to do his work in life at his best. This 
includes two things: first, skill in the processes he is called 
upon to use, and second, arithmetical sagacity, power to 
understand or to learn what he does not know now and 
may be called upon to know in the future. 

Now the number of arithmetical processes that most 
people are called on to perform in actual life is small. 
It includes the fundamental rules, a little simple work 
in fractions, a good acquaintance with decimals, interest 
with bank discount and simple percentage (not the myriad 



138 BETTER SCHOOLS 

so-called " cases" of the latter). In the case of a large 
number of people a much smaller capital suffices. But 
absolute comprehension, accuracy, and rapidity are needed 
within these limits. Imagine a boy who is trained in 
arithmetic to this extent, trained to be alert, rapid, and 
sure, and who in his general education outside of arith- 
metic, is trained also to clear thinking, to the best use of 
all the brains he has. Picture such a boy in actual busi- 
ness called upon to master partial payments, which he 
has never studied. What will happen ? He will master 
it in fifteen minutes. 

But the multiplication of subjects in arithmetic may 
prevent this outcome by so loading up the pupil and the 
teacher that skill and rapidity are impossible. And this is 
what is actually happening throughout this broad land. 
The arithmetic has been cut in comparison with what was 
required in the days of old, but we still fondly hold to 
many traditional subjects. I submit but two illustrations : 

The teachers of former years taught and the teachers 
of to-day teach a subject in fractions known as the least 
common multiple. It takes time to teach it, it takes time 
to drill it, it takes time to come back to it and teach it 
and drill it all over again, and then — it goes into limbo. 
No human being uses it (in arithmetic) . 

"To find the principal when the rate, interest, and time 
are given." That is a "case" of interest. I doubt if 
any one who reads this article has used it twice in his 
life unless he is a specialist. But there are three other 
"cases" in interest and three in plain percentage, not to 



ARITHMETIC 139 

speak of the applications of percentage to profit and loss, 
commission, etc. Now let us freely acknowledge that 
there are people who must use some of these processes. 
But there are also people who must know how to find 
the area of a circle, the volume of a sphere, the frustum of 
a cone, the buoyancy of a ship, the present value of a life 
insurance policy, etc. It is clear, that either these things 
must be taught somewhere or else enough skill and intelli- 
gence must be imparted to enable the student to master 
these himself when he needs them. Both courses must 
be pursued; but the special training should be confined 
to those who are more likely to need it. 

It is clear also that, for the ordinary pupil in the pub- 
lic schools, the multiplication of subjects in arithmetic 
means decreased power through lack of adequate drill. 
Narrow the range of the teaching, and greater power is 
possible. Any one really familiar with the schools of the 
United States knows that the characteristics of the pupils 
are these: dawdling, inaccuracy, and lack of ordinary 
common sense in dealing with new problems. We are 
better than we used to be, but we are poorer than we 
ought to be. The trouble is not in the intrusion of the 
newer subjects, but in the overloading of the old. 

Let me return to my basal proposition. What we want 
is not arithmetic, but arithmetical power. We want to 
confine the subject to its province. I believe that the 
work in our grammar schools and high schools must from 
a certain point divide into courses ; college, business, 
industrial courses, etc., which will enable the student to 



140 BETTER SCHOOLS 

prepare to do the thing for which he feels fitted. Under 
such conditions arithmetic must be specialized as well as 
geography, drawing, and other subjects. What I am try- 
ing to show now is that for the given student the question 
is one not of amount, but of power, and power implies 
assimilation. 

I am trying to show also that arithmetic loses its place 
as an essential subject. It is not essential at all, except 
in a limited sense, as to a limited area; and its essentiality 
varies with the individual. Drawing may be far more 
essential than arithmetic to many a pupil. Indeed, the 
vaunted importance of an extensive, comprehensive course 
in arithmetic is responsible for many of the misfits in the 
world. We must all have some arithmetic, but to make 
a child study equation of payment when his divine en- 
dowment says he should be studying birds is a crime 
against the child. 

Is it not time that the child should be recognized as 
an individual ? Is he not one of a kind ? Did God in 
creating him intend him to do certain things in the 
world? What things? That is the solemn question 
the teacher must answer. He may not be able to 
answer it very wisely, but it is madness to ignore it; 
it is blasphemy to substitute his opinion for the divine 
opinion. And this is what we do, when we tumble fifty 
children into the arithmetical hopper and say that they 
must all come out at the bottom so much arithmetical grist 
of a uniform variety. No subject ever can be essential 
in such a sense as that. 



ARITHMETIC 141 

Is there not a haunting feeling of something funda- 
mentally wrong in our thinking as we reflect on such 
considerations as these ? Do we not seem to be face to 
face with a great parting of ways? Is not the funda- 
mental consideration the child, his personality ? Is not 
all else to be considered in view of its reaction on this 
divine entity? The opposing view holds. There are 
subjects to be taught. The child is a convenient thing 
to teach them to. You cannot teach geography without 
children. Therefore we must have children in the 
schools; but the geography is the important fact, and the 
child must accommodate himself to it. Here is arith- 
metic for the child; bring forth the child, — as if we 
should say: here is the lemon squeezer; bring forth the 
lemon. Included between these two extreme views range 
the teachers of the country, the mass practically adher- 
ing to the latter view. Once more, let us search our 
practice. Let us bow to the Froebelian law of self-rev- 
elation. Let us make the child the starting point for 
our courses of study and our methods. When we do 
that, our schools will be revolutionized and the divine 
intention will be incarnated in our children. 



CHAPTER XII 

Geography 

In the last chapter I endeavored by the aid of arith- 
metic to make clear this proposition : That there are no 
" essential" studies, that every study is essential or not 
essential to the extent that it meets the child's needs 
in life. Stating the proposition in another and a very in- 
teresting way, the education of a child is a question in 
the solution of which the child comes first and the subject 
and books second. This statement not only changes the 
selection and treatment of subjects, but it revolutionizes 
the whole ideal of the school. It lies at the basis, for 
example, of industrial education. It is destined to 
produce a most radical and far-reaching change in the 
organization of the schools of our country. 

Among the subjects that illustrate the contrast be- 
tween the former and the newer thought in this con- 
nection the most interesting and striking is geography. 
This subject, while not honored with a place among the 
"three r's," is, nevertheless, considered by everyone a 
very useful branch of study. If not " essential, " it is 
"near-" essential. But how and in what way? 

Note, that it has been a favorite branch of study with 
only a few people. Most children in the past disliked it 
or had a most feeble interest in it. But, as I have tried to 

142 



GEOGRAPHY 143 

show in a previous chapter, without interest, we get very 
small results with children. Education is a matter of 
self-activity. I think that the memories of geography in 
the case of most of us are confined to the game of Find- 
ings, generally played surreptitiously. It has left 
few traces on the student's mind: a limited knowl- 
edge of countries, cities, rivers, etc. (with some, a very 
limited knowledge), a much more trifling knowledge 
of customs, an inappreciable knowledge of trade, and 
little desire for more knowledge of any of these things. 
But we spent a prodigious amount of time upon it. Now 
here is a great expenditure to secure a very little result. 
That looks like a serious waste of time and money. Of 
course, I do not claim that nothing came of it, but that 
only a little came of it; that little was obtained at great 
cost, and the most valuable result, a love of the subject, 
was practically lost. 

What was the purpose of geography in the earlier days ? 
It was merely to get facts. Therefore, the books were 
crammed with them. We committed to memory — or we 
were expected to do so — the location of many cities, the 
windings of many rivers, the location of many a bleak 
cape, the* boundaries of a vast number of countries and 
states, and productions of amazing number, variety, and 
distribution. Most of these have been forgotten. Here 
and there a fact remains in our memories, but most of 
us have learned more geography from the newspaper 
and from general reading and travel than we ever learned 
in school. 



144 BETTER SCHOOLS 

No other subject has been taught more poorly than 
geography. The chief cause of the poor teaching has 
been the failure to grasp the true reasons for teaching 
the subject at all. This really important subject has 
generally been regarded as a means of giving children 
conceptions of the relationship of land masses to the 
great bodies of water, and the names of the leading parts 
of land formations and of different bodies of water 
throughout the world, with, in later years, some knowl- 
edge of the political divisions of the world, and of facts 
relating to population, productions, etc. 

There are only three reasons that can justify the 
teaching of any subject in school : the development 
of power, the culture of the mind, or the storing of the 
mind with knowledge that will be of use in practical life. 
The teaching of geography in the past has had little 
influence on either of these departments of training or 
culture. Educationally the processes of teaching geog- 
raphy have trained the memory slightly and by the worst 
possible processes for memory training, — the committing 
to memory of unrelated facts. Practically there was 
very little real value in the facts after they had been 
learned. 

Mrs. Browning ridicules the aim of geographical 
teaching in her description of the teaching given to 
Aurora Leigh. Aurora, in describing her education, 
criticizes the old method of teaching geography, when 
she says : 



GEOGRAPHY 145 

"I learned the internal laws 
Of the Burmese empire, — by how many feet 
Mount Chimborazo outsoars Teneriffe, 
What navigable river joins itself 
To Lana, and what census of the year five 
Was taken at Klagenfurt." 

Geography should make the child acquainted with the 
earth as the home of man, and should give him definite 
knowledge regarding the various causes that influence the 
conditions of life in the different parts of the world. It is 
a degradation of this ideal to make the study of geography 
consist mainly of the memorization of the names of 
places, and of facts relating to statistics of population, 
etc., which change with each census. Such teaching 
robs geography of every vital element of interest and 
value. If geography really meant nothing more than 
this, there could be little justification for giving it a place 
on the school program. 

The real study of geography trains the child to 
investigate the conditions of life, and the causes that 
produce varying conditions in different places. It 
enables him to understand why certain parts of the earth 
are deserts and other parts fertile, and leads him to see 
clearly why some districts are teeming with a vast 
population while other districts are not inhabited, or are 
occupied by a very small number of people. It makes 
him familiar with the development of plant and animal 
life, and their relationship to human life. It treats of 
soil and its formation, of rainfall as essential in promoting 



146 BETTER SCHOOLS 

growth, of winds as influencing rainfall, of mountains in 
deciding the direction of winds, of the causes that lead to 
varying conditions of climate, of the results of the motions 
of the earth, of the great ocean currents, of the wonder- 
ful work of rivers, of the various divisions of the human 
family and their special characteristics and powers, and 
of other phenomena affecting the earth as man's home. 

A boy should not merely know that there is a vast 
desert in the northern part of Africa; he should be taught 
why so large a part of that continent is a desert. He 
should not be taught the mere facts that there are great 
salt lakes in the western part of Asia, in the western 
part of North America, and in the interior of Australia ; 
he should learn why these lakes are salt, why in the 
nature of things they must be salt — because they have 
no outlet. 

Geography should be one of the most interesting and 
most educative subjects on the school program, be- 
cause of the variety of its departments and their direct 
relationship to human life, and of the fine opportunities 
it affords for training the reasoning powers by dealing 
with the real problems of everyday experience. 

Why do we have day and night? Why do the days 
and nights change in length ? Why do we have different 
seasons ? Why is it warm in summer and cold in winter ? 
Why is it colder on the eastern coast of North America 
than on the western coast ? What causes winds to blow 
on some days and not on others? Why do not our 
winds blow always from the same direction ? Where does 



GEOGRAPHY 147 

the dew come from ? Why does it come in the night 
and not in the day ? Why does it not rain every day ? 
Why does it rain at all ? Why do we not have good 
moonlight every night? Why is the moon not always 
round? 'Why do rivers flow where they do and not 
in other places ? Why are cities situated where they are 
and not in other places? Why are mountains found 
where they are ? Why are some mountains volcanoes ? 
Why does the sun rise in the east ? Why does the sun 
set in the west? Why does the sun not always rise at 
the same time and set at the same time ? Why does the 
sun not always rise in the same direction and set in the 
same direction from your house ? Why do we not see the 
same stars every night ? Why does time change as we 
travel east or west ? Why does it grow colder as we climb 
higher on a mountain ? Why does it grow colder as we 
go farther away from the equator? Why does the sun 
not shine straight over the heads of people outside of 
the torrid zone ? Why are the days and nights the same 
length about the 21st of March, and the 21st of Sep- 
tember? Why are our nights longer after September, 
and our days longer after March ? When are our nights 
longest, and why ? When are our days longest, and why ? 
Why do our days get shorter after June ? Why do our 
nights get shorter after December? Why does the 
North Star go lower in the sky as we travel toward the 
equator? Why do we have eclipses of the sun? Of 
the moon ? What is the shape of the shadow of the 
earth as it is seen crossing the moon ? Why do we not 



148 BETTER SCHOOLS 

have two eclipses each month, one of the sun and one of 
the moon ? Why can we not see farther on a flat country ? 
Why can we not see farther on the ocean ? Why do we 
see the top of a vessel when she is coming toward us 
before we see the hull ? 

These and many similar problems may be made deeply 
interesting to all children. Indeed, when properly 
planned and properly taught, there is no other subject 
so universally interesting as geography, because its 
problems are of universal meaning in the lives of all 
children. The solution of these problems gives the 
teacher his greatest opportunity to develop the reasoning 
powers of his children, because the problems are real 
problems, that they may perceive and conceive clearly. 
Such problems form the best possible basis for definite 
reasoning. 

Mathematical geography, well taught, gives a better 
training of the logical powers than arithmetic or any 
department of mathematics can give, because the prob- 
lems are so clearly manifest in the elements necessary as a 
basis for the child's reasoning. 

The "Committee of Ten," appointed by the National 
Educational Association, reported as follows in regard 
to geography : 

" Observation should go before all other forms of 
geographical study, and prepare the way for them; its 
object being (1) to develop the power and habit of geo- 
graphic observation ; (2) to give the pupils true and vivid 
basal ideas ; and (3) to arouse a spirit of inquiry and a 



GEOGRAPHY 149 

thirst for geographical knowledge." Every child has 
naturally a spirit of inquiry, which the teacher should 
develop. Usually we have dwarfed or destroyed this 
basic wonder power in the child's mind by forcing children 
to study statements about facts instead of investigat- 
ing the facts of life surroundings and conditions, and 
by compelling them to try to memorize names instead 
of guiding them in the study of problems that their 
own observation has revealed to them, so that they may 
learn for themselves the principles behind the phenomena 
with which they are already perfectly familiar. The 
observation so wisely recommended by the " Committee 
of Ten " is intended to define the relationship of condi- 
tions with which the children are already familiar, and to 
make them conscious of facts easily recognizable and 
possible of the clearest conception, so that they may 
be led to think definitely in regard to the causes that 
lie behind the phenomena of the child's relationship 
to the universe, and the influence of his environment to 
his own life. Such training does not merely develop 
a deeper interest in and a stronger thirst for geographi- 
cal knowledge, but a deeper interest and a stronger 
thirst for all knowledge, a more definite reasoning power, 
and a greater capacity to recognize the material prob- 
lems of life, and through them gradually the intellectual 
and spiritual problems connected with the development 
of humanity. 

"The Committee of Ten" further says: "Obser- 
vation, however, should not be confined simply to the 



150 BETTER SCHOOLS 

passive, fixed features by which pupils are surrounded. 
They should observe the agencies that produce surface 
changes, such as winds, rains, floods, cultivation, etc. 
The temporary streams that follow rains represent on a 
small scale many of the natural processes by which 
surface features are produced. From these immediate 
agencies the observations should extend to the phenomena 
of the weather and climate, such as temperature, winds, 
clouds, seasons, etc." 

Pupils should be trained very early to observe the 
movement of the sun in rising and setting farther north 
or south, and in rising higher or falling lower at noon, 
noting the seasons at which the various changes take 
place. The changes in the moon, and the length of 
time that passes from new moon to full moon, and from 
full moon to new moon again, should be observed and 
recorded even by young children. They should also 
note daily the direction of the wind, and try to find 
out from which direction rain usually comes; and they 
should record as many observations as possible about the 
weather. 

The children should be taken out to ravines and hills 
and ponds and the shores of lakes, where practicable, and 
trained to observe the effects of streams, rains, the melting 
of snow in the springtime, etc. They should be trained 
to reproduce and reveal in visible form the things that they 
have observed and the facts that they have learned, as far 
as possible. For this purpose sand tables, sand boxes, 
clay, putty, and other plastic substances, cardboard, colors, 



GEOGRAPHY 151 

drawing, and other forms of representation and construc- 
tion should be used. Maps made by the pupils independ- 
ently or in groups or classes to represent the vegetables of 
the different zones, or the animals of different countries, 
or the relief structure of continents, or the natural and 
manufactured commercial products of different countries, 
are much more interesting and impressive to the pupils 
than ordinary maps. In making such maps excellent 
pictures of trees, plants, animals, and men and women 
in their national costumes may be cut from magazines 
or advertisements and pasted on the maps drawn by the 
pupils, or the pictures may be drawn and colored by the 
pupils themselves. The making of such a map will 
make a clearer and more permanent impression on a 
child's memory than a hundred efforts to commit the 
facts to memory by ordinary processes. 

Rapid map sketching from memory, locating the special 
features that are being studied, is the quickest and surest 
way of fixing geographical forms, and locations in the 
memory. Careful map drawing to a scale should be 
taught to the older pupils, but nearly all map drawing 
done in school should be rapid sketching from memory. 
A pupil who sketches the same map ten times from 
memory in half an hour, comparing his sketch each time 
with the real map to see the defects of the sketch, will 
have learned vastly more about the map than a pupil who 
has devoted the whole half hour to making one carefully 
drawn map. 

The formation of soils by the weathering of rocks and 



152 BETTER SCHOOLS 

mountains, and by decaying animal and vegetable 
matter, should be explained. The children in most 
localities may be led to observe the formative processes 
of soil construction. The influence of large rivers in 
carrying the soil for long distances from the mountains, 
and in forming new lands, should be taught. 

There are few places where the fundamental appercep- 
tive centers for the true understanding of the essential 
principles and facts of geography, such as direction, 
distance, relative location, natural adaptation to man's 
needs and uses, difference in soils, the effects of winds and 
water in weathering rocks and in forming new land, as 
well as the various forms of land and water, may not be 
defined clearly in the minds of pupils by actual investiga- 
tion and experience. Such investigations and experiences 
are the true basis for real geographical teaching. 

A very interesting department of geography is the 
study of the various races into which men are divided, 
and of the different types of government which they 
have evolved, with their religions and other elements of 
their varying degrees of development and civilization. 
These studies should be taken up in the later years of 
school life. 

In "Hard Times" Dickens thus describes his school- 
master: "He knew all about the watersheds of all the 
world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all 
the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and 
mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs 
of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings 



GEOGRAPHY I 53 

on the two and thirty points of the compass." And the 
novelist adds: "Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. 
If he had only learned a little less, how infinitely better 
he might have been taught much more !" 

This is but a slight exaggeration. The M'Choakum- 
childs are yet doing a good deal of teaching. One of the 
family taught in New Jersey at the time of the Columbian 
exposition at Chicago. I was one of the State committee 
appointed to pass upon and arrange the papers sent in 
for exhibition. One examination paper in geography 
was based on questions of which the following was one. 
"Name all the places in the world you know." Then 
followed a few pages of foolscap, the facts being arranged 
in a highly logical order something like this, Europe, Toms 
River, Sacramento, Yang-tse Kiang, Revere Beach, Ger- 
many, Connecticut River, Kamchatka, etc. I have known 
but one question designed to get at so much information. 
The single case is that of a question in history intended 
"to develop general information," which read thus: 
"Where and when did who do what?" 

Note also that in all this learning but one faculty of the 
mind is thought of, the memory. Now let us grant the 
importance of the memory, and let us grant also that 
some movements in modern education have tended to an 
atrophy of that faculty, but still it is true that memory 
is not all there is of us, even in geography. Geography 
is a logical study, and should appeal to the reason, imag- 
ination, and perceptive powers of the student, as well as 
to the memory. 



154 BETTER SCHOOLS 

Now, whenever one uses psychological terms, he is very 
apt to be set down as unpractical. But consider what, 
in plain English, these words mean, perception, reason, 
imagination; and especially what they mean in the 
teaching of geography. They have much to do with 
present-day education. 

Perception means simply that we shall see things, and 
see them well. The fact that many people go through 
life and see little takes the word " perception " out of the 
unpractical, and raises these two questions, questions 
decidedly practical : Is this a good thing for the boy ? 
How did it come about ? 

Is it a good thing to be blind, or partially blind, or 
even of faulty vision ? The whole question of success 
turns on a man's power to note every fact of importance 
to him, and on his power to make use of it. The tend- 
ency to observe and the power to note are aims in teach- 
ing that by no possibility can we leave out. There is no 
department of life in which keenness of vision is not of 
value. To be quick to see and to take advantage is the 
popular way of putting the thought. 

But many children lack just this power. In plain, 
homely phrase, they lack gumption. They do not see, 
they do not care to see, they do not know what seeing is. 
How did it come about? Just as muscular feebleness 
comes about, just as lack of musical discrimination comes 
about, just as absence of mechanical skill comes about : 
by failure to recognize the power to see, and failure to 
develop it. And the pity of it is that the disposition to 



GEOGRAPHY I 55 

see is the dominant characteristic of childhood. That is 
the child's principal business, to see and to ask questions: 
If we recognize this tendency and develop it, it will grow 
like any other tendency ; if we do not develop it, it will 
wither, like any other tendency. Froebel, the great 
German apostle of education, has expressed the pathos of 
the situation: "Unfortunately, we see here again con- 
firmed what to our sorrow confronts us so often in life ; 
that even the highest and most precious blessing is lost by 
man if he does not know what he possesses." " By and 
by we would fain give another direction to the energies, 
desires, and instincts of the child growing into boyhood ; 
but it is too late, for the deep meaning of child life passing 
into boyhood we not only failed to appreciate, but we 
misjudged it; we not only failed to nurse it, but we 
misdirected and crushed it." 

The failure to develop perception runs throughout our 
entire school work. In geography our opportunities for its 
development are many. For example : Among the little 
children, it is possible to point to the positions of the sun 
during the day, to observe which way the shadow falls in 
the forenoon ; in the afternoon ; at noon ; to set sticks in 
the yard, and notice at different hours in the day the 
length of shadow with regard to the stick ; to actually ob- 
serve natural features, such as hills, rivers, ponds. Among 
the older children it is possible to observe the kinds of soil 
from the coarsest gravel to the finest vegetable mold ; to 
take field lessons and to see all things geographical that can 
be seen, ocean, shore, bay, island, hill, slope, etc. ; to ob- 



156 BETTER SCHOOLS 

serve the geography of one's own city, to know of its man- 
ufactures, etc., to recognize the appearance of foreigners 
whom we meet, to visit ships that go to foreign coun- 
tries etc. The catalogue is endless. The facts of geog- 
raphy receive, under such treatment, a reality that no 
book study can impart. If we do not do these things, 
if the child gets anything from a book that he can, 
with reasonable effort, find for himself, we throw away 
the precious opportunity to train the faculty of looking 
for and seeing things, that " indefinable longing, " which, 
as Froebel says, " urges the boy to seek the things of 
nature." It is a longing easily starved. 

Now note very briefly the relation of geography to 
the reason. Does the cultivation of the reason need 
defense ? Is it not more important to a man that he 
shall make no false moves from what he calls bad 
judgment than that he shall know the bends in the 
Susquehanna River ? 

Why not lead the pupil to think concerning the causes 
of fertility ? Thus, fertile soil is generally found at the 
lower edges, and poor soils at the upper edges of long 
slopes. The study of climate, for example, employs 
the reason very largely. Including as it does mete- 
orology, its influence on the productions of the earth, 
the pursuits of men, their comforts and luxuries, — 
it is a fascinating study. The means that men em- 
ploy to counteract the influence of climate are also 
interesting. And finally, the fact that climate controls 
production results in the conclusion that climate controls 



GEOGRAPHY 1 57 

commerce. Why not teach that the people of rich pro- 
ductive regions must exchange surplus products for 
things that they need but do not produce; that a 
center for collecting the surplus and sending it away 
must be established; that the needed products will be 
received at this center and then distributed locally; 
that a center will be established at a place where water 
or railway communication, or both, are available, etc. ? 

As for the imagination, let us call it broadly the picture- 
forming power. That is near enough for the present pur- 
pose. Think of St. Petersburg. What do you see ? A 
dot on the map. Think of the city in which you live. 
What do you see ? A city. Now much of our so-called 
geographical knowledge is just so many dots and lines and 
colors on the map, or some lines of printed matter in the 
text. Such knowledge is inert. It leads to nothing. 
But picture knowledge, the photograph on the retina of 
the imagination, makes foreign scenes real, and foreign 
people live ; it awakens curiosity, excites thought, makes 
real the idea of trade, awakens sentiments of sympathy, 
humanity, fraternity, tends to destroy foolish prejudice, 
substitutes arbitration for war. 

But to get all this the course must be lightened. The 
course of study cannot take in everything, and it seems a 
wise principle to put into the course what can be thor- 
oughly drilled by the teacher. If this nucleus is firmly 
retained, the child's subsequent acquisition in geography 
will be easily and naturally made. 

We must make the central thought in geography the 



158 BETTER SCHOOLS 

earth as the abode of man, making the interests of 
man the prominent interests. This would cause a 
treatment of countries and cities to be based on the 
commercial point of view, involving reasons for the ex- 
istence of the cities, etc., rather than upon mere ques- 
tions of location. It would make such matters outrank 
in importance the location of capes, bays, etc. 

We must guard against the present tendency to de- 
mand of the child scientific information, physiographic 
or otherwise, that is beyond his comprehension. This 
means that physiography is to be taught, but that there 
is a limit to it, and that other phases of the geography 
have their rights. 

We must keep all the time as far as possible within the 
sphere of the child's interests. 

We must have much field work; we must make the child 
a discoverer. We must by supplementary books on scenes, 
customs, and trade make all countries real. We must 
closely associate the geography of a country with its his- 
tory. Finally we must demand of the pupil that he think. 

A large collection of pictures should be made in every 
school to illustrate the lesson in geography. Magazines 
and illustrated papers contain many pictures of cities and 
typical scenery, lumbering, and agriculture, commercial 
institutions, great factories, mining plants, rolling mills, 
oil derricks, and dock yards, people in their national 
costumes, and animal and vegetable productions. These 
should be cut and mounted by the pupils, and kept in 
classified packets for use in the geography lessons. 



GEOGRAPHY I 59 

In all geographical teaching, the overloading of the 
memory with mere details of facts, or names, or data 
relating to population, productions, area, etc., should be 
avoided. The aim should be to train pupils to be in- 
terested in mankind, and in the earth as man's home and 
his source of subsistence, and to lead them to observe 
and think intelligently. 

Two stories must close this chapter. The first is 
from a very entertaining little book written by a bril- 
liant grammar master of Chicago, Mr. William M. 
Gifiin, entitled " School Days of the Fifties." Would 
that the scene were impossible now! 

"We studied 'jogafy' in the old stone schoolhouse 
(in New York State) too ; both in the big room and the 
little room ask 'What is an island?' and all would yell, 
' An island is a body of land surrounded by water.' Then 
had we been asked what is the meaning of surrounded, 
there would have been no yelling, as it is doubtful if any 
of us knew. I shall never forget the day a visitor, a 
teacher, by the way, up in pedagogy, as I know now, sat 
listening to us recite definition after definition with a 
smile on his face. At last the teacher asked if he would 
like to ask some questions. His first question was, 
'Name the Middle Atlantic States.' We named them. 
His next, 'Who ever saw any of, or any part of the Middle 
Atlantic States? Hands up/ No hands. 'Well, who 
never saw any of the Middle Atlantic States? Hands 
up.' Up went all of the hands ! Then, 'Does the St. 
Lawrence River flow up hill or down hill?' 'Up hill,' 



l6o BETTER SCHOOLS 

with one voice. We knew by the way the teacher 
looked that something was wrong, but did not know 
what. We were sure we were right, because we had 
seen it on the map. Now came, 'Which is higher, Lake 
Erie or Lake Ontario?' 'Lake Ontario,' again from 
the whole class. Now came the last but not least, 'You 
may all point to the north,' and every index finger of 
our right hands pointed to the ceiling of the room." 
The other is a Chelsea story. A wise principal and 
a couple of wise teachers took their classes over to visit 
a White Star steamer. They went by appointment, 
wandered all over the boat, asked questions, helped 
themselves to travel literature and maps of explanation 
published by the company, as well as time-tables. Then 
they came back to Chelsea. They traveled to Birming- 
ham, London, Glasgow, etc., with the aid of guides, 
Aaps, and time-tables. The facts of interest in the guides 
were fascinating, the pupils were captured by the study. 
They did not learn all that the geography says about Eng- 
land, but they knew England in a sense that few pupils 
(or grown-ups either) know anything. That is education. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Reading 

It is high time that this discussion took into consider- 
ation the leading member of the ancient trio of " r's." 
Our fathers were not wrong in giving to reading this 
place of honor. It deserves it. It lies at the basis of 
all knowledge. Without it, progress in every direction 
is practically arrested. It is indeed true that some success 
is possible without this art. There are other avenues of 
knowledge. Worldly shrewdness, like that of our wise, 
lovable, and illiterate Mr. Boffin, in "Our Mutual Friend," 
indicates that there is a wisdom not due to reading. 
But it is nevertheless true that we must depend for the 
data on which we base much of our knowledge on our 
power to read the thoughts of others expressed in the 
printed page. 

The apparent stupidity of children in much of their 
school work is often due to their inability to really grasp 
the meaning of the thing that they are reading. They 
are in a position similar to that in which we adults 
would be if we had to get all our knowledge of religion or 
politics from the German language, of which we had a 
very incomplete knowledge. Much would elude us in 
that case; and for the same reason much eludes the 
children in the reading of English. 

M 161 



I 62 BETTER SCHOOLS 

But what is the practical purpose in the teaching of 
reading ? Of what use to us adults is the power to read ? 
Merely that we may quietly ascertain from the page of 
printed or written characters the meaning that some one 
has recorded in that manner. But is that the purpose 
in school? It would not seem so. Apparently the 
thing we are going to do all our lives is to read aloud, for 
that is what the school reading lesson generally means, 
and has meant from time immemorial. This seems rather 
amusing. For we are trying to acquire the art of doing 
a certain thing in the future by doing all the time the 
thing we are not going to do in the future. The 
rejoinder is simple. To learn to read to ourselves we 
must read aloud so that the teacher may discover that 
we are reading correctly. And this answer is a type of 
many a foolish answer that we school teachers are 
making to many a fair question. We answer by asserting 
a thing that is not so, merely because we blindly accept 
traditions handed down to us by teachers who, like our- 
selves, never questioned the tradition. The only possible 
way to learn whether a child understands what he has 
read is to ask him to tell in his own language what he has 
learned. Nothing is more interesting in the whole 
range of school administration than the fact that every- 
where teachers are doing things that do not produce the 
results they are intended to produce, and yet they keep 
on doing them. 

Illustrations of this strange blindness are numerous 
enough. The ascendency of Latin and Greek in our 



READING 163 

high schools for so long a time, and the earthquakes 
that were necessary to retire them to their proper sta- 
tus, furnish a striking example. But reading furnishes 
another illustration that our emancipation is as yet but 
imperfectly effected. 

For it is true to a limited extent only that we learn to 
read to ourselves by reading aloud. Let me not be 
understood to underrate the importance of reading aloud. 
We cannot do without it; it is indispensable in gaining 
correct articulation, pronunciation, and expression. These 
functions are important, and to a limited extent reading 
aloud does also help in acquiring the art of reading to 
one's self, especially in the earlier stages. But its function 
in this particular is excludingly restricted. We acquire 
skill in reading in another way. 

To demonstrate this proposition is important. It is 
interesting not to the teacher alone, but to the parent also. 
For if my contention is valid, then there is evidently a 
large waste of time in the teaching of reading. Putting 
it tersely, if we can teach a child to read in four years 
instead of in eight, we save four years of his reading 
time. And time is the most precious possession a child 
brings to school. Some children are limited as regards 
money; all children are limited as regards time. Let 
me then offer at this point some considerations that 
establish my position, and then ask, to what practical 
result does this proof point ? 

First, it is a matter of common knowledge that 
children who have plenty of reading at home and who 



I 64 BETTER SCHOOLS 

are induced by their parents to read, or who love to read 
themselves, soon outstrip their companions and acquire 
the power to read in an incredibly short space of time. 
The reading aloud served to start them; the rest they 
did themselves. 

Again, it is easily proven that where an intelligent 
teacher is successful in putting all his children in the 
same relation to silent reading that holds in the favored 
cases cited above, a similar thing happens. The method 
is simple. While carrying on his regular reading lessons, 
he supplies his pupils with all the silent reading suitable 
to their years that they will take, and provides oppor- 
tunities for using it. He cultivates on their part an 
appetite for reading. It is an appetite, by the way, that 
children may easily acquire. The result soon appears. 
The children make rapid advance, and in a year they 
are reading with ease matter that would otherwise be 
impossible. 

Again, it is clearly impossible to get sufficient practice 
by merely reading a short paragraph. If one did only 
that in studying a foreign language, he would never learn 
it at all. Fortunately for the boy in school, even in the 
worst conditions, he must read silently what others 
are reading aloud. 

The fact is that reading is simply a matter of practice. 
It is, however, a matter, too, of a great deal of practice if 
one would become proficient. I am referring to the 
silent act of reading, which is what ninety-nine in every 
one hundred understand by reading. If one would learn 



READING 165 

German, he must be put in an atmosphere of German ; 
he must breathe it, read it, talk it, dream it. And so 
must the child who is learning English. 

Reading is an art in which the child gains the most 
from his own exertions. It is like learning to ride the 
bicycle ; we can start him and help him, but he must, 
after all, do the thing himself. All the teacher can do is 
to provide material and opportunity for practice. The 
parent can also help very much by supplying the child 
with plenty of wholesome reading. And it is, moreover, 
very important that the parent should understand the 
basis of his child's instruction in school. 

Indeed, by the time the child finishes the fifth grade in 
our schools, that is to say, in the average case, at ten years 
of age, he ought to read easily anything that he can under- 
stand. The mere power of reading should be mastered. 
I am speaking of silent reading, but it is a surprising 
fact that most children who can do this are also expert 
in oral reading. The favored child, to whom I have 
already referred, who has plenty of reading at home, is 
usually a good oral reader. The reason ought to be 
obvious. With power comes intelligence, and with in- 
telligence expertness in many directions. 

But mere power to read is not enough. There are 
many things to be done for the child even after he has 
acquired the art of reading. Let us think of them. 
They are rather important. 

First, the child ought to form the reading habit. I 
do not know of any outcome of the school work more 



1 66 BETTER SCHOOLS 

important. Oral reading, valuable as it is, may be 
taught so as to absolutely prevent the inculcation of a 
love for literature. Our pupils (I speak of the country 
at large) do not go out from our schools with the reading 
habit. It does not seem to have occurred to all of us 
that the habit of reading to ourselves, which is the way 
most of us read when we read at all, must be formed 
like any other habit. 

Second, we must train the child so that reading shall 
be a mental stimulant. With many people it is not. 
In school we must not fail to recognize that an important 
factor in the teaching of reading is the fact that the child's 
mind is expressing itself. But many reading lessons 
in school cannot at all be described as expressions of the 
inner nature of the child ; they are just reading lessons. 
No one who observes the apathetic attitude of some 
lower-grade primary classes in their reading lesson, or 
who hears their unsympathetic tones, can believe 
that the soul of the child has anything to do with 
the matter. And this mental attitude toward reading 
established thus early is the seed out of which evolves the 
unintelligent work in reading in the later grades. The 
treatment of the reading lesson in the grammar grades 
often presents a dead lesson. The sum of the matter is 
this : We cannot teach reading, any more than we can 
teach anything else, and ignore the self-activity of the 
child. 

Third, the ultimate aim in the teaching is intelligent 
recognition of content. Children say stupid things in 



READING 167 

history, for example, because they imperfectly compre- 
hend the language of the book. I think it would surprise 
many a teacher if he could know what a child really does 
get from the printed page. One reason why the answers 
of children are vague, uncertain, or fragmentary is that 
their ideas are vague, uncertain, or fragmentary. 

Fourth, we must, through reading, increase the child's 
vocabulary. Those who can lay claim to a large vo- 
cabulary never obtained that vocabulary through the 
daily oral lesson in school. Indeed increase of vocabu- 
lary is seldom the result of a conscious effort. In 
learning a foreign language the basis is obtained 
by a direct effort to learn words, but if one ever 
really masters a language, the great body of his vo- 
cabulary is obtained through silent reading, hearing, 
and speaking. Why should it not be so with the child ? 
In our own case also, the process of unconsciously in- 
creasing our vocabulary gives us greater and greater 
power in that line, and the longer we are at it the more 
rapid our progress. If this be also true of the child, is 
not a rapidly increasing intelligence implied in the pro- 
cess ? For let it be borne in mind that in our own case the 
increase in our vocabulary was a secondary result based 
on an enlarging fund of ideas which demanded words. 
The increasing fund of ideas is another way of saying 
increasing intelligence. 

Finally; children must acquire a love for and an ap- 
preciation of literature. If they are to do this, it is not 
sufficient that they be introduced to the subject; they 



l68 BETTER SCHOOLS 

must live in an atmosphere of literature. And besides, 
it is not clear that the way to reach a position of mas- 
tery in this subject is merely to read aloud. I think 
that we can grasp the conditions and requisites of an 
appreciation of literature it we fix our attention on a 
parallel branch of art. music. How much would we ever 
learn of music, of its literature, of musical form and 
musical appreciation, if we only learned what we sang 
ourselves ? We ought to sing to ourselves, but we must do 
far more: by hearing them, we must study works that 
we could by no possibility sing or play. We must attend 
recitals, symphonies, oratorios, as well as perform music 
ourselves. Why not so in literature? Should not the 
child read silently much that he cannot or has not the 
time to read aloud ? Why should not much be read to 
him by the teacher? This does not exclude the regular 
reading lesson, but it revolutionizes the whole plan of 
procedure. Studying literature is not only reading 
aloud or silently so many inches of the printed page ; it 
is the acquisition of the power of grasping and appre- 
ciating and loving worthy thought, as expressed in worthy 
language. The aim is not to say this language aloud, 
but to comprehend it as the expression of beauty and 
force. The question is, shall the pupil ultimately seek 
the best literature for his own reading ? 



CHAPTER XIV 

Spelling 

Artemtjs Ward said of Chaucer that "he writ good 
poetry but he couldnt spel"; he had a poor opinion of a 
man who " couldnt spel." 

The world at large has much the same opinion, not of 
Chaucer, but of the man who cannot spell. At first sight 
it seems a little thing to make such a fuss about. As a 
disciplinary study, while not without value, it is of less 
importance than any other study in the school curriculum. 
It is entirely conceivable that a man might make a 
splendid success in life and still be a very poor speller. 
Many fairly successful people, indeed, are weak in the 
art of spelling. 

And yet one of the most serious criticisms on the 
product of the public school is made at this point. An 
obvious reason for this criticism is that everybody can 
see bad spelling. A man may be a much worse arithme- 
tician than he is a speller (and he generally is), but it is 
harder to find that out. He may conceal his weakness in 
arithmetic ; indeed he may never be called upon to reveal 
it, but he must write; and at once, if he is a poor speller, 
he is detected. 

In addition to this, spelling bears some such relation to 
a man's attainments as good clothes do to his personality. 

169 



170 BETTER SCHOOLS 

When our penmanship and spelling are bad, the mind, 
so to speak, seems shabbily dressed. We set a higher 
value on these marks of culture than on facility of ex- 
pression, accuracy, or even worthy thought. Horace 
Greeley's writing could be deciphered only by one 
highly paid compositor in the New York Tribune printing 
office. There were many in the office who wrote better 
than he. Indeed, there were none who wrote so badly. 
But Horace Greeley is remembered, and most of the 
others forgotten. The world will often forgive or con- 
done bad penmanship, but bad spelling, never. Yet they 
stand on about the same level. And this adverse opinion 
persists in spite of the fact, that any one can verify, that 
while good penmanship and spelling may go with a good 
mind, they frequently do not. Edward Eggleston says, in 
"The Hoosier Schoolmaster," concerning the champion 
speller of Flat Creek : 

"Jeems Phillips was a tall, lank, stoop-shouldered 
fellow, who had never distinguished himself in any other 
pursuit than spelling. Except in this one art of spelling, 
he was of no account. He could not catch well or bat 
well in ball. He did not succeed well in any study but 
that of Webster's Elementary. But in that he was — to 
use the usual Flat Creek locution — in that he was ' a 
hoss.' This genius for spelling is in some people a 
sixth sense, a matter of intuition. Some spellers are 
born and not made, and their facility reminds one of the 
mathematical prodigies that crop out every now and then 
to bewilder the world." 



SPELLING 171 

This prelude is not a plea for bad spelling, or even an 
apology for the absence of good spelling. It is a demurrer 
entered to arrest the hasty judgment. Good spelling is 
important ; so are good clothes; but in both cases there are 
considerations far more important. It is unfair to urge 
the spelling criticism on our children as final simply be- 
cause it is the easiest criticism we can make. It is my 
judgment that the spelling of most people is in advance 
of their other acquirements. If that be a fact, it is an 
unfortunate fact. To return to the parallel of good 
clothes, it suggests the definition of a " dude," "A ten- 
cent man with a ten-dollar hat." 

There is no subject in which there is more pains 
taken in school than in spelling. And the product of 
the spelling lessons is very satisfactory. Why, then, 
the inadequacy of the practical product? That is a 
question that few teachers ask. I have in mind an 
amusing incident of a teacher who taught spelling in 
the high school. She said, "The grammar school pupils 
come here not knowing how to spell. I have to teach 
them." And she went at the task in precisely the same 
way the grammar school teachers had gone at it, giving 
lists of words no better than those the pupils had already 
had, and taught by the same methods, excepting that 
some of the lower school teachers taught better. 

Now the words that our children misspell are not the 
spelling book words, but the words of their own vocabu- 
lary. The spelling lesson is usually not made up of these 
words, but of other words. This seems absurd. Yet that 



172 BETTER SCHOOLS 

is the way in which spelling has been taught for a long, 
long time. When we consider that the great majority 
of errors, at least in the earlier years, have to do almost 
exclusively with familiar words, i.e. with the child's own 
vocabulary, it seems clear that if we can extirpate such 
errors, we can largely clear up the child's bad spelling. 
Why, then, should we go on endeavoring to teach a new 
vocabulary and leave this mass of inaccuracy behind us ? 
Such a course of procedure is illogical in the highest degree. 

There is a distinction to be made between teaching 
spelling and increasing the vocabulary. The former has 
to do with the child's own errors, the latter with words 
that he does not know. But we jumble the two together 
as if there were no difference. If we realized the differ- 
ence, we would not do some of the strange things we do 
in our so-called teaching of spelling. 

Again, no method of teaching spelling is logical that 
does not cause the knowledge to become immediately 
available. A word must become a part of the child's 
vocabulary before it is learned in a practical sense. 
Therefore the increase must be very slow and the words 
easy. The new words should be but little in advance of 
the vocabulary of the pupil. The child who reads in a 
third reader uses a vocabulary on the grade of the first 
and second reader. 

It is not to be hastily assumed that a large field of in- 
struction may not be covered by the use of a small num- 
ber of words. Many words may be safely left to take care 
of themselves; many words present no orthographical 



SPELLING 173 

difficulty ; many derivative words may be omitted if a 
few simple rules of derivation are learned; again, there are 
many words belonging to maturer years, easy to spell 
when the time for their introduction occurs. The im- 
portant consideration, however, is this : Every rational 
teacher knows that a comparatively limited vocabulary 
is the outcome of the school course. Subsequent ac- 
quirements are to grow out of a trained power of 
observation. This means that the power of taking in 
the image of the word rapidly and accurately must be 
acquired. If this end be attained, the actual vocabulary 
of the pupil is a subordinate matter. He now has the 
power of accurate seeing. 

Here enters again that great law of education which 
Dr. Hill felicitously describes as the law of the " gracious 
overflow." In teaching one thing, we unconsciously 
teach another ; that is to say, in all good teaching there is 
a tendency to accuracy and even to a knowledge that 
exists beyond the thing taught. 

An extremely interesting and curious fact to be borne 
in mind, a fact generally forgotten, is this : most of the 
errors that children make are in words that they have 
learned through the ear, not through the eye. They 
make but few mistakes in words that are first met in 
writing or in print. The child has learned to speak the 
familiar words before he saw them printed; and when he 
saw the correct form, it did not displace the incorrect 
form already in his mind. 

Perhaps one of the fertile causes of failure is our persist- 



174 BETTER SCHOOLS 

ence in spelling in columns. Children will often hand 
in a faultless column lesson of difficult words and a 
dictated paragraph containing words much easier but 
badly spelled. We should not forget that the ultimate 
purpose in the teaching of spelling is that the pupil shall 
write correctly, not in columns, but in paragraphs. 

Are we not guilty here, as in so many other cases, of 
spinning our courses of study from our own heads and 
not from the facts of childhood ? 

It has seemed to me that of all the blind teaching we 
teachers do, the teaching of spelling is the blindest. It is 
empirical in most cases ; reason, much less psychology, 
enters very little into our methods. We differ as to 
oral and written spelling, we differ as to the propriety of 
dictating words in sentences or in columns, and we differ 
as regards the use of spelling books and the degree of dif- 
ficulty of the words used ; but why we differ, or what is the 
psychological basis of this or that method, few of us can 
say. And so we go on, and the product is bad, and we are 
criticized severely by the public because our graduates 
" can't spell." My only hope of interesting my readers 
rests on inducing teachers to make a sincere effort to 
apply the principles of psychology to facts drawn from 
the schoolroom. It is an effort, semi-scientific, at least, 
to get at causes. The inferences have seemed sufficiently 
important to warrant me in radical changes in method in 
my own schools, and I offer these changes to you, not 
as finalities, but with the hope that they may turn your 
thoughts along somewhat new lines. 



SPELLING 175 

While superintendent at Trenton, New Jersey, I sent to 
two classes in one of the schools two extracts to be dic- 
tated by the teachers and written by the pupils. The 
classes selected were the fifth and seventh grades. In that 
city the first grade usually represents two years ; therefore, 
the pupils in the grades tested may be said to be in the 
sixth and eighth years in school ; i.e. of an average of 
eleven years in one class and thirteen in the other. 

The extracts selected were the following : 

Sixth Year. "Once upon a time a man and his son 
were going to market, and they were leading their donkey 
behind them. They had not gone far when they met a 
farmer, and he said, ' You are very foolish to walk to town 
with that lazy donkey walking behind you. What is a 
donkey good for if not to ride upon?' 'Well, I never 
thought of that,' said the man, 'and I am willing to 
please you ' ; so he put the boy on the donkey and started 
again on his journey. Soon they passed some men on 
the roadside. 'See that lazy boy,' said one of the men, 
'he rides the donkey and makes his poor old father walk 
behind.' When the man heard this, he called to the boy 
and said, ' Stop a minute, let us see if we cannot please 
these men.' Then he told the boy to get off, and mounted 
the donkey himself." 

Eighth Year. "One day, a ragged beggar was creep- 
ing along from house to house. He carried an old wallet 
in his hand, and was asking at every door for a few cents 
to buy something to eat. As he was grumbling at his lot, 



I76 BETTER SCHOOLS 

he kept wondering why it was that folks who had lots of 
money were never satisfied, but were always wanting 
more. 'Here !' said he, 'is the master of this house. He 
was always a good business man, and made himself rich a 
long time ago. Had he been wise, he would have stopped 
then. He would have turned his business over to some 
one else, and then he would have spent the rest of his 
life in ease. But, what did he do instead ? He took to 
building ships and sent them to sea to trade with foreign 
lands. He thought that he would get mountains of gold; 
but there were great storms on the water, his ships were 
wrecked, and his riches were swallowed up by the waves. 
Now his hopes all lie at the bottom of the sea, and his 
great wealth has vanished like the dreams of the night.' ' 

The words misspelled were marked by the teachers of 
the classes and returned to me. Availing myself of 
the assistance of a number of high school girls, I sub- 
jected the papers to the following treatment : 

At the bottom of each paper were written the words 
misspelled in the paper ; in each case the word correctly 
spelled was first given, and the incorrect spelling followed. 
These records were afterwards cut into slips and arranged 
alphabetically. An alphabetical table was then made 
out, giving under each word its various misspellings. To 
illustrate : " foreign was spelled in six different ways, but 
there were nine cases of misspelling this word, as fol- 
lows : forign, four times ; foreigh, forhen, foren, forigen, 
forgin, once each." 



SPELLING 177 

There were in all 324 cases of misspelling, 77 words 
misspelled and 202 forms of misspelling. The lowest 
number of forms of misspelling was one, the highest 18, 
the latter in the case of the word, journey. There were 
in all eighty papers examined. No attention was paid to 
the difference in grade. After this preliminary work had 
been completed, and the matter was in systematic form, 
I called a conference of about thirty intelligent teachers, 
and submitted the results of the investigation. The 
matter was discussed as thoroughly as the time permitted, 
and some light thrown upon the meaning of the data. 

Before considering the facts developed and the infer- 
ences drawn, a preliminary observation may be in order. 
It may be objected that the number of pupils tested was 
small. Usually in child-study investigations a vast num- 
ber of cases are treated. In answer I desire to say 
that some of the lessons that I have drawn from the 
investigations are overwhelmingly indicated in the field 
covered, and I do not think that a wider field would 
reverse these conclusions. Regarding certain other 
conclusions found in this paper, I admit the paucity of 
data. In my own mind these latter conclusions are 
clearly indicated, although, of course, not fully proven. 
The investigation must, of course, be regarded as experi- 
mental or preliminary. I might add, however, that in 
widening the field we meet complications, and introduce 
other considerations whose influence should not be lost 
in the mass, but should be estimated separately. For 
instance, the school investigated was located in one of 



178 BETTER SCHOOLS 

the best portions of the city, and was composed of 
children of American parentage. Suppose I had mixed 
with the results I have obtained those drawn from 
sections where the foreign population is in the ascendant. 
I think my results would have been confusing. The 
foreign children should be examined by themselves. 
They offer evidence of two kinds : First, evidence cor- 
roborating inferences drawn from other quarters; this 
evidence is just as valuable, considered separately, as if 
it had been drawn from a mass of mixed data : Second, 
foreign localities teach a lesson peculiarly their own, and 
this we cannot afford to lose by mixing the data. Be- 
sides, in the investigation of spelling do we not first need 
to know the difficulties that the native-born population 
finds; and second, those that the foreign encounters? 
The former are essential errors, often, perhaps inherent 
in the language. The special difficulties of the foreigners 
are inherent in the foreigner. 

The disclosures of the investigation may be approached 
in a rather interesting way by taking a few words and 
observing the various forms of misspelling. I shall begin 
with the word, journey. On this word the pupils ex- 
pended the wealth of their ingenuity. I could not have 
invented so many spellings myself. I give the entire fist : 
jorney, journy, jerney, gerney, jornay, jeimie, jernary, 
gourney, journei, jurony, jorney, yourney, jouery, jer, ji> 
jou. Let us consider this list in some detail. It gives, as 
will be seen later, a conspectus of nearly the whole field. 

There are 18 of these spellings, and the first 13 are 



SPELLING 179 

founded on aural percepts; that is to say, the ear has 
determined the wrong spelling. Of these 13 forms some 
are repeated by more than one pupil, thus : jorney is 
given 5 times; the 13 forms, in fact, represent 22 mis- 
takes. There were 27 mistakes altogether in the spelling 
of journey. Therefore, almost 82 per cent (22 out of 27) 
of the mistakes were ear mistakes. I mean that in such 
mistakes the boy had a percept of the sound " journey " 
and that he translated the sound into writing in his own 
way, and there were 13 different ways. These pupils had 
seen the word " journey " many times; but they had also 
heard it many times, and it was the aural percept that 
dominated. Probably they had written the word jour- 
ney in spelling lessons, and had been corrected and made 
to spell it right. All futile : the sound of the word 
determined the spelling in accordance with the boy's 
views of orthographical combinations. I should like to 
give out the same exercises to the same pupils again. 
The same pupils would probably spell journey wrong 
again, and in accordance with the phonetic laws; but 
would they the second time adopt the same wrong 
spelling ? 

I may as well say here that the whole investigation 
clearly indicates this law: viz. that the sound is the 
dominating element in children's spelling. I might 
give many illustrations, but one must suffice: foolish 
is spelled foullosh, fulish, foulies, folish, follish, foulish, 
fourshil, furlash. 

Now, what does this teach ? In my opinion it teaches 



l8o BETTER SCHOOLS 

this, at least, — that spelling cannot be taught by writing 
alone. When a boy writes jerney, that visual percept sat- 
isfies his view of the facts of the case, of course, and I wish 
you to mark this statement : he does not see it to be wrong. 
But when the word is corrected at the end of the lesson, 
does not that fix the proper spelling ? Not always. The 
wrong form has been associated with the sound, and the 
association has not been broken. Why ? First, because 
of the interval that elapses between the writing and the 
correction. The correction should be made instantly, 
with a shock, as it were, and this can be done only in oral 
spelling. Second, the association must be broken not 
once, but many times, if it is to be completely demolished. 
Now oral spelling has greatly the advantage of written 
spelling in this respect. You can spell a word one 
hundred times orally while you are writing it ten times. 
Rapid oral spelling bears the same relation to written 
spelling that rapid mental arithmetic does to written 
arithmetic. In my judgment the oral spelling should 
always both precede and follow the written spelling. 

In my case this means a complete overturning of my 
previous notions. For many years I had argued in this 
way: spelling is used only in writing; therefore the 
visual picture of the word alone is of consequence. 
Therefore spelling should be taught exclusively by writing 
and in sentences. During the last few years, to be sure, 
I had been weakening on this theory ; but because I could 
not see that my theory was turning out good spellers 
rather than because I saw flaws in the theory. But the 



SPELLING l8l 

overwhelming evidence presented by this investigation 
reduces the matter in my mind to a certainty. The 
psychology of the written method is incontestable, but 
hard oral drill is evidently suggested by the predominance 
of ear-mindedness, indicated in the present investigation. 

Let me, in discussing this question of ear-mindedness, 
call your attention to some subordinate considerations 
under the same general heading. They seem to me to be 
of great importance, and to throw a bright light on the 
relation of oral to written spelling. 

First, it is to be remarked that not only do pupils 
know the sound of journey, but that some of them know 
it wrong: e.g. note jorney. The pupil who wrote this 
probably pronounces it with a long o. 

Take the word swallowed. I give the forms written by 
the pupils. Swalloed, swolloed, swolid, swolled, sallowed, 
swalled. Note that the boy who wrote swalloed has the 
correct sound, and yet he wrote it wrong; but the boy who 
wrote swolid did not even have the correct sound ; and he 
must write it wrong. The latter fact is true of the writers 
of swolled (four boys), and swalled. To proceed with 
a spelling lesson when everybody has the correct pro- 
nunciation of the words does not always result in accurate 
spelling, as has been already suggested ; but to proceed, 
as many teachers do, without being sure of the pronuncia- 
tion, is surely unwise. Take wondrously, spelled three 
times wonderously and once wonder sly. Do not these rep- 
resent wrong aural percepts to start with ? 

Again, still considering ear-mindedness, the investiga- 



I 82 BETTER SCHOOLS 

tion indicates the interesting fact that certain pupils 
attach certain phonetic power to certain letters or com- 
binations of letters. Thus, returning to journey, in 
gerney and gourney this is the explanation of g, and in 
jeirnie of ie and probably of ei ; in the spelling creap- 
ing, note ea, and creping, e; etc. Now this trouble is 
inherent in our language, and presents formidable diffi- 
culties. We have few rules, and they do not help us very 
much. For instance, take the rule : g is soft before e. 
Well, then, what is wrong with gerney? We certainly 
spell germane. 

I call your attention to this suggestion : These wrong 
views on phonetics are probably individual with each 
pupil ; they are idiosyncrasies. This is very important if 
true. A little investigation, even notes taken from time 
to time, will reveal the tendencies of individual children in 
this matter and enable the teacher to anticipate what the 
child will do, and to prevent his writing the wrong letter, 
not only in journey, but whenever soft g is suggested. 
Thus, "We have journey in to-day's lesson. With what 
letter does it commence?" "With ay," says the ma- 
jority. "With a g" say a few. "Now let us look," 
says the teacher. But note that this method of procedure 
is oral. It has to do with an aural percept, and contem- 
plates the immediate aural correction of incorrect aural 
percepts. I insist on immediateness of correction. To 
wait an hour will not do. And I insist on the first ap- 
proach being made through the ear, for it is the ear-mind, 
if you will allow me the expression, that is in error. 



SPELLING 183 

Again, one of the interesting and amusing facts con- 
cerning this matter of ear-mindedness is the contempt 
that children have for unnecessary letters. 

Mark Twain once expressed his admiration of a young 
lady who, in a word game, spelt caf for calf. He argued 
a certain directness, going straight to the point, in the 
young lady's make-up. And there is as much wisdom 
as wit in the story. It is our spelling that is irrational, 
and it is the bad speller that is rational. My investiga- 
tion, of course, offers many illustrations of the tendency 
that I am discussing. Thus, note journey: (What is the 
use of the e ?) Jurny : (What is the use of the ?) Foks 
for folks, stoped for stopped, reck for wreck, etc. In 
the word swallowed there were ten misspellings, and 
in only two of these did the last w occur. 

In leaving this question of ear-mindedness, may I 
not suggest an explanation for the well-known fact 
that children spell unusual words well, and familiar 
words incorrectly ? The unusual words have never been 
used in such a way as to form an aural percept. The 
percept is visual, and therefore correctly written. But 
the child has learned to speak the familiar words before 
he saw them printed, and when he saw the correct form, 
it did not displace the incorrect form already in the mind. 

An interesting psychological inquiry is this, and I 
earnestly urge it on your attention : Does there lie in 
some corner of each child's mind a visual percept that 
is the constant translation of the aural percept of the 
word the child knows — jerney, for instance ? And 



1 84 BETTER SCHOOLS 

when he transfers this percept to paper, can he write 
anything else? Adults are often in doubt as to the 
spelling of a word ; but with regard to familiar words, at 
least, the child is in no doubt ; he writes caf with an 
insouciance that is simply delightful. If these visual 
images do subconsciously exist, notice how they persist 
year after year in spite of all your teaching. If they 
do exist, why not acknowledge their existence, expect 
them, and combat them first and last through the ap- 
proach by which the image entered the mind, viz. the 
ear ? To blame or reproach a child for such errors is like 
blaming him for being left-handed. 

I dismiss, for the present, the question of ear-minded- 
ness, and come to a class of errors that clearly arise, at 
least in part, from visual aberrations. My word journey 
does not help me here, and this, of itself, is an interesting 
fact, as I shall presently show. Let us take the word 
foreign. I give the spellings: forign (4 times), foreigh, 
forhen, foren, forigien, forgen. Now, several of these 
spellings are entirely or practically phonetic. Notice 
foren. But on the other hand notice the letter g occurring 
in every spelling but two, i.e. in 78 per cent of the cases. 
In the last spelling, forgen, it is hard to believe that there 
was any aural percept at all. The g shows that the eye 
has been active in every case but two ; just as the last w 
was left out in swathed, where the ear was concerned, the 
g is studiously put in where the eye is concerned. The pu- 
pil does not know how to spell foreign, but he knows that 
there is a g in it somewhere. Take the word minute. I 



SPELLING 185 

have 20 misspellings, taking 17 forms. Now the phonetic 
errors given are these : minuet, minuete, minnote, menat, 
minet, minete. But on the other hand, consider these, 
remembering that from the child's point of view the 
letter u is the unreasonable part of the word. Minutt, 
mintue, mint, minunt, minut, minuate. In some of these 
spellings the phonetic principle has also something to do, 
but the eccentric dancing around of that letter u is a 
purely visual matter. 

Consider the two words minute and foreign together. 
Certain peculiarities are observable when they are con- 
trasted. Minute is a common word, and therefore 
there was a previous image corresponding to the sound. 
But the printed or written word was outre as far as the u 
was concerned, and hence arose errors that are not 
phonetic. Foreign is not a word for the child's vocab- 
ulary; it is purely visual, and hence the phonetic 
element enters very little into the misspelling. Notice 
also that there were only 9 misspellings of foreign, while 
there were 20 of minute. Of course, foreign had no 
original settler to expel, and minute had; and in 20 
cases the original settler, you see, held his ground. 

I think this argument indicates that we need not 
fear the unusual words nor the danger of wrong percepts 
obtained visually. The fight must be made on familiar 
words, where aural percepts are concerned, for, as I have 
already said, it is a fight to gain territory already occupied 
by obstinate residents. With reference to the class of 
words typified by the word foreign, it is merely a 



1 86 BETTER SCHOOLS 

question of learning, but the learning of the words 
typified by journey means the unlearning of an alien 
language. 

Teachers generally make their spelling lessons out of the 
unusual words, and every day violate the principle for 
which I am now contending. Spelling books almost 
unanimously offer words unusual to the child. I almost 
think that if we taught the child's own vocabulary well, 
we could leave the new words to take care of themselves. 
When the child wants to use a new word, he can be 
taught to look up the spelling, as you and I do. We 
waste time in teaching spelling as we teach it. 

I now desire to touch a galaxy of errors that cannot 
be classified under either of the headings, ear-mindedness 
or eye-mindedness. At first sight they seem to be mat- 
ters of invention. Some of them are rather interesting. 

First, note that peculiarity among children of putting 
in letters that have no force in the sound of the word. 
M incut and mittih, for minute; jemary for journey; 
midt for met ; pasend and pasted for passed, crepting for 
creeping ; handing for leading ; saHsfided for satisfied. 

What do these mean? I have gone over several of 
these errors thoughtfully. I cannot say that I can offer 
anything conclusive, but two or three suggestions seem to 
arise from the consideration. 

First : The trouble may be that the child is of foreign 
birth or parentage. For instance, final /// means / 
to a German. If you know the pupil to be foreign, you 
may have the key. 



SPELLING 187 

Second: In not a few cases where the pupil was un- 
certain about a word, while he was thinking he found him- 
self compelled to hurry on because the teacher was dictat- 
ing a new sentence. Some prominent sound or letter 
in the word, as r in journey, dominated and went down 
on the paper because the faculties were not acting 
normally, e.g. elese for else. Sometimes a sound or letter 
belonging to another word in the sentence was dominant, 
and introduced itself into the word being written. 

Third : I find the process of association very active in 
writing. In the instances given, note crepting, handing, 
and minth. Think of the actual words crept, lend and 
month. I do not say that these words were in the child's 
mind, but I have a little evidence to show that they 
might have been. The investigation offers a number of 
instances in which other good English words were actually 
used for those dictated, the new words making no sense 
whatever, and yet leaving me entirely sure that the new 
word had taken the place of the old one. Take a few 
illustrations. Wrecked was spelled wreathed and wretched. 
This is not a case of misspelling. It is an actual in- 
trusion of a new word in the place of the word dictated. 
Now, when minth was written for minute, might not 
month have intruded itself in the same way? To give 
other illustrations : Were was spelled where and was, and 
make was used for made. In many other cases, while 
the intrusion is not so clearly indicated, there is room 
to suppose that there was such an intrusion. In such 
cases, at least, we cannot be sure that the child did not 



1 88 BETTER SCHOOLS 

know how to spell the word, as when he spelled farther 
for father. I think in this case, that he knew how to 
spell father, but the word farther got into his mind. 
Children run off on tangents very easily, and many so- 
called errors in spelling are tangential errors. 

Fourth: Certain letters tend to intrude themselves 
with certain children. T is a very intrusive letter. Why 
do people say onect ? I have on my list pasted for passed, 
wonder eslly for wondrously, and kiting for leading. I 
knew a little girl who invariably put in an n after ay, as : 
"What was he sayning?" and "I was playning." I 
think that these may be called idiosyncrasies, and should 
be treated as such. Similar considerations apply to the 
substitution of letters, as when mourted was written for 
mounted. 

I pause here to direct your attention as forcibly as I 
can to this fact applying to the present section of this 
discussion. It is its practical outcome. Such errors as we 
are now considering are not errors in spelling at all ; that 
is to say, they do not indicate that the child does not 
know. They arise from haste or from the domination of 
an associated idea. The teacher should not correct such 
errors, but should permit the child to discover them him- 
self by reading over his papers several times, until he finds 
them ; much less should the pupil lose marks for them. 
It is unjust to say the boy does not know how to spell 
when he has written mourted. Give him a chance to 
correct his own paper, and see if this is not so. 

But how few teachers seem to know this ! There is only 



SPELLING 189 

one fact in their minds when they correct a spelling 
paper, and that is that the word was spelled wrong. Let 
me enforce the lesson I am now trying to teach by the 
consideration of a few more errors, kindred to those just 
considered, to which the practical statements I have 
just made apply with equal force. 

There is a tendency on the part of children to leave out 
letters. I have many illustrations in my table of errors. 
We are so familiar with this in our own writing that we 
should not be surprised. In our case it is not because 
we do not know, nor is it necessarily so in the child's 
case. It is the result of other causes; some of which 
have been referred to, which affect the manual act of 
writing. Here, again, the child should be permitted to 
find his own error, and should not be treated as if he did 
not know his lesson. The same argument and suggestion 
should be made again in cases in which a child has in- 
verted letters, asjurnoy for journey. 

So also must we regard the substitution of the singular 
for the plural; as ship for ships, or the opposite; the 
putting in of another part of the verb, as send for sending ; 
the use of one word for another, as then for them, the for 
they, though for thought. They are not errors in 
spelling ; or they may not be : at least the pupil ought to 
have the same privilege that we enjoy in our corre- 
spondence, the privilege of reading it over to himself one 
or more times. 

Permit me, for a moment only, to call your attention to 
a class of very peculiar, but interesting, errors which 



190 BETTER SCHOOLS 

deserve a similar treatment. I refer to those cases in 
which the word is not spelled at all. Take these spellings 
for journey : jer, ji, jou. Now, perhaps the child did not 
have time for consideration, or was nervous. The 
state of mind may be similar to that already described 
in the paragraph in which I have tried to show why a 
boy put in an extra letter. Here again the child should 
be permitted to correct his own errors by reading over his 
own paper. It is not wise to infer from this kind of error 
that the child does not know. 

The charge is made against some child-study investiga- 
tions that they traverse a great area to discover what 
was known before. That may be the case in the present 
investigation. Whether it is or not, I am certain of this, 
that the inferences to which I have been inviting your 
attention represent principles that are every day violated 
by thousands of teachers. The following inferences seem 
to me to be reasonable. 

First: I call attention to the broad inference from this 
investigation, that the criticism of spelling should be 
analytical. Errors in spelling differ in kind, and they 
differ as to their origin, and they demand varying types 
of treatment. But, in practice, there is no analysis in the 
treatment of spelling. The teacher recognizes the fact 
that seven words out of the fifty are wrong, and she 
recognizes no other fact. But the seven errors may each 
require special treatment. It has been shown that some 
errors are not errors in spelling at all. They are errors of 
nervousness, mental tricks, or merely errors of writing, as 



SPELLING 191 

when a boy spelled journey for journey. Furthermore, 
the pupil should be permitted to discover his own errors 
in many cases. Such errors as he can discover should 
not be marked against him. Again, the error may be in 
the percept of the sound of the word, or it may be that the 
sound and a certain spelling are so closely associated that 
hard knocks are necessary to break the connection ; or 
the child may be in error as to the phonetic force of 
certain letters and combinations of letters; or he may 
have idiosyncrasies regarding spelling that require in- 
dividual treatment ; or, finally, the eye may be at fault. 

Of course all this means fewer dictation exercises 
and more detailed and analytical consideration of such 
exercises. The present plan of many exercises and a 
superficial correction evidently does little good. I think 
it may be shown that it even strengthens certain wrong 
tendencies. 

Second: The importance of a larger amount of oral 
work in spelling ought to be apparent, for by far the 
larger portion of the errors arise from false percepts 
derived through sound. I have already called attention 
to the probability of there existing subconsciously in 
the child's mind a visual percept, which is the translation 
of the child's aural percept of a word. Note carefully 
that this relation between the false percept and the 
sound is probably individual and is intimate beyond 
belief. It takes a convulsion to separate them. The 
sound journey and the spelling jernie have been friends 
a good while. Do you think that one friend is going to 



192 BETTER SCHOOLS 

abandon another just because you introduce a new one, 
a little prettier ? By no means. We make our bow to 
journey: " Happy to know you; be pleased to meet 
you again," and we go traveling off with, jernie just the 
same. You must utterly destroy the connection before 
you can establish a new one. This means a running 
fight with the false percept — not one fight, but many ; 
and this means much oral work, covering, mark you, a 
limited area. It also means the correction of the error 
the instant it shows itself. It will not do to wait. 
Here again, ample oral drill is demanded. The dicta- 
tion exercise is important, but only as a test of the 
success of your oral drill. Of course I am here re- 
ferring only to sound errors. 

Third : We are not to forget that the ultimate purpose 
in the teaching of spelling is that the pupil shall write 
correctly ; not in columns, but in paragraphs. The oral 
drill and the column work must be considered not as 
ends in themselves, but in view of practical writing. 
Teachers are perfectly familiar with the fact that pu- 
pils will write the column lesson much better than the 
dictation lesson. But success in the latter is the only 
true success, and must, of course, be made the standard of 
attainment. The word drill and the column drill must 
be manipulated for the most part to prepare for the 
paragraph work or to correct the errors found therein. 

Fourth: Note the great preponderance of what I 
have called sound errors, indicated in this investigation 
and note also that these errors have to do almost ex- 



SPELLING 193 

clusively with familiar words ; i.e. with the child's own 
vocabulary. This means that if we can extirpate such 
errors, we have largely cleared up the child's bad spelling. 
Why not do this ? Why go on endeavoring to teach a new 
vocabulary and leave this mass of inaccuracy behind us ? 
I believe that such a course of procedure is in the highest 
degree illogical. Yet it is the course followed by most 
teachers. I have already touched on this subject, but lay 
special emphasis on it at this point with a view toward 
making a practical suggestion or two. Any observant 
teacher can, within a year, make a list of words that are 
actually used by her pupils, and to a greater or less 
extent used incorrectly. This is her most valuable 
spelling book. I do not mean that no other spelling 
books may be used; but their use must be subordinate, 
and they should be used, not to teach spelling, mark you, 
but to increase the vocabulary. 

But regarding the increase of the child's vocabulary, a 
word of caution is necessary. Few of us realize how 
very small is the possible daily or weekly increase in the 
child's knowledge in any line. This is especially true 
with regard to language. No child can add to his vocab- 
ulary one tenth of the number of new words that many 
teachers put in a spelling lesson. Two, three, or at the 
most five, is a large daily increment. Try it yourself in 
the learning of a new language ; German, for instance. If 
this be true, the necessity for any large use of the spelling 
book disappears, and the drill falls back on the child's own 
vocabulary. When teachers grasp these two correlated 



194 BETTER SCHOOLS 

essentials, first, drill on the child's own vocabulary, 
second, a very small daily increment to that vocabulary, 
accuracy in spelling will result. In other words, when 
we stop trying to do so much, we shall succeed in doing 
more. 

I add a suggestion which is a logical corollary to what 
I have already offered. The increase in the child's 
vocabulary must be for use in that vocabulary and 
subject to subsequent drill. Therefore, the words must 
be easy. This principle is violated by most courses of 
study, and therefore by most teachers. The child who 
reads in a third reader uses a vocabulary on the grade of 
a first or second reader. The fourth-reader pupil's own 
vocabulary is scarcely above that of the second reader. 
Here is the indication for the spelling lesson so far as the 
new words are concerned. The words given out in our 
spelling lessons are far too difficult. 

Fifth : I claim that children should correct most of 
their own errors. Not only so, but they should find many 
of them without any help from the teacher. The blue 
peneil is used far loo much. It is neeessary, however, to 
note thai the pupils probably will not be able to find the 
sound errors at first. Jcmie will not arrest the child's 
attention. It looks perfectly natural. Foring for foreign 
will arrest his attention, for he is not sure about foreign, 
and he will consult the dictionary. But he is sure about 
jernic, and passes on. When jemic does arrest his atten- 
tion, then you have broken the association. 

Let the child do all that he can for himself before you 



SPELLING IQ5 

interfere. Then apply your skill on the residual errors, 
and apply your skill skillfully. 

Sixth: Finally, I call your attention to the moral 
phase of the problem. The right of children to help 
themselves, just discussed, is indeed amoral considera- 
tion, but there is another and a very serious one. You 
remember my claim that many errors are not spelling 
errors. They do not mean that the child cannot spell 
the word. They mean that he was nervous, or, as I 
have said before, that his mind played him a trick, or else 
that he needed time for consideration. Now, when you 
mark ten words wrong, and six errors arc of this char- 
acter, you are unjust as well as unwise, for there are also 
errors that are pure carelessness, or that indicate willful 
lack of study. In one set of cases the child has not 
tried, and in the other he has tried. By your process you 
make no distinctions. You hold the child up for un- 
pleasant criticisms, and make unjust comparisons. Per- 
haps the child indicates no sense of injustice, but try the 
r61e of justice, and sec how quickly he responds. "Some 
of you were hurried and wrote words that you didn't 
mean to write. Now, look over your papers, and I know 
you can correct many errors. I do not want to take 
any advantage of you." Very gladly the normally con- 
stituted child hands in his improved paper. Now, you 
can say, "You have only two errors," and that is more 
stimulating than to say, " You had eight errors." Try 
this plan, for a few weeks, and then go back to the old 
way and see if the child is not conscious of injustice. The 



196 BETTER SCHOOLS 

only reason he was not conscious before, was, that he 
did not know that there was any other way. It pays to 
be just, even in spelling. 

But this moral question has one other phase. I am 
very fond of FroebeFs claim that there is no true educa- 
tion where the child is not made conscious of power. And 
Froebel distinctly means power. He is to be made 
conscious of power; he is not to be made conscious 
of failure. What does the teacher generally do? 
He emphasizes failure. It is a mistake. Emphasize 
success, emphasize power. By recognizing the child's 
ability to correct many of his errors, we emphasize power. 
By holding up a long list of errors we discourage him; 
or, putting it more forcibly, we evolve consciousness of 
defeat. Give the child a chance, and then say, " Well 
done, you had only one error to-day, and I can see how you 
made that, and I know you will not make it again after 
you understand it," etc. Take my word for it, there is 
always a response to this kind of treatment. Do not be 
so fond of the blue pencil, or, if you must use it, use it to 
mark the words written correctly, and then the blue will 
be on the paper and not in the child. 

I hope that my readers will continue to investigate the 
causes of wrong spelling, and the condition related to it, 
so that better methods of teaching the subject may be 
discovered. 



CHAPTER XV 
Language 

The most discouraging subject in the whole school 
curriculum is that known as language — the English 
language. The demands made on the child are simple ; 
merely that he express himself orally and on paper, 
accurately and freely. It is not demanded of him that 
he express great thoughts, but simple, everyday thoughts. 
In a word, it is demanded that he be able to convey to 
others what he has in his mind. For this we give him 
eight or nine years, not to speak of the high school. What 
are the results ? 

They are most unsatisfactory. I speak of the country 
as a whole. About thirty years ago a mighty revolution 
in the teaching of English swept the country. It was 
mainly a revolt against instruction in technical grammar, 
and a demand for direct instruction in langage by simply 
giving the children plenty of English to write. The 
revolution spent its force, and its outcome was beneficent. 
We paid more intelligent attention to getting results, and 
on the whole there was improvement in the use of English. 
But the improvement fell so far short of any reasonable 
standard of good writing, that it may be described as 
inconsequential. 

197 



I98 BETTER SCHOOLS 

The outcome of language teaching is unsatisfactory 
almost everywhere. The result of eight or nine years of 
persistent instruction is pitiful. The high school is 
emphatic in its condemnation of the results. It matters 
not that the remedies suggested by the high school 
teachers are utterly inappropriate and inadequate, and 
it matters not that the high school does little better with 
the material received than the elementary schools have 
done; the estimate of these teachers is worthy of con- 
sideration. Indeed, the grammar school teachers are only 
too well aware of the correctness of the charges. Every- 
where throughout our broad country the same charac- 
teristics mark the outcome of English teaching in elemen- 
tary schools. They are, (1) lack of freedom in the use 
of language, (2) lack of accuracy, (3) lack of fertility of 
thought. These lacks are frequently serious, sometimes 
amazing, and always clearly evident except in favored 
towns or with exceptional children. 

Let us go into a little detail. Taking the country as a 
whole, then, these are the facts. 

With regard to freedom it is a matter of common 
knowledge that children use language, both in speaking 
and writing, with painful effort. They do not speak or 
write as they bicycle or skate. To the end of their school 
course they communicate their ideas awkwardly and with 
very conscious effort. This is true even in speaking, if 
the thing said involves more than a sentence. In writing 
they use English with the same freedom that most people 
display when they write with their left hand. They ex- 



LANGUAGE 1 99 

press their thoughts on paper with reluctance, and they 
never write at all if they can help it. 

Regarding accuracy, let the oral or written efforts 
of the pupils tell the story. The sentences that children 
use in any continuous effort in speaking, even in reci- 
tation, are crude and inaccurate. Often the teacher 
repeats the child's expression after him, making it 
correct, saying, "You mean to say," etc. He 
did not mean to say that at all. He meant to 
say just what he did say. Often the child does 
not finish his sentence audibly, but permits it to fade 
away into an inarticulate murmur. Generally the 
teacher accepts this, filling it out, telling him as before 
that he "meant to say," etc. The knowledge of the 
excellent things that he "meant to say" must be very 
gratifying, and, at the same time somewhat surprising. 

In written work, especially incidental work such as 
tests, inaccuracy in construction is so common that the 
shining exceptions do not relieve the burden of general 
failure that the teacher sadly carries. Sentences are 
incomplete, faulty in grammatical agreement, show a 
feeble power as to pronouns and tenses, and are loose 
or involved in construction. 

In the matter of fertility of thought it is well known 
that this is often lacking when the accuracy of expression 
is most commendable. Children say faultlessly what it is 
not worth while to say at all. This is very significant. It 
means this: So much time and strength has been expended 
on form that thought has been forgotten or excluded. 



:cvo BBTTBB SCHOOLS 

Two questions suggested by this survey beeome 
highly interesting: First . what is the nutter with the 
Schools ? Second, what are we going to do about it ? 

The answer to the first of these questions is exceedingly 
difficult There are. however, two elasses of explanation 
that may be offered, the first elass including those that 
are beyond the teacher's control and the second those 
that are within his eontrol. 

In the former elass of explanations, let us note first 
that the teaching of language is made extremely difficult 
by the fact that much of the influence exerted on the 
child out of school tends to nullify the progress made 
by pupils in sehool. This is true of no other subject 
exeept morals. In arithmetic, for example, the child is 
taught that two and three make five, and that proposi- 
tion is not disputed when he arrives at home; but if he 
is taught that it is wrong to say. " Him and me done it. " 
that proposition may be and in many eases is disputed. 

No one who has not dealt with children in praetieal 
efforts to teach the English language can appreciate the 
tremendous obstacles that arise from the considera- 
tion just noted. It bears directly on the main fact in 
the acquirement of language; namely, that we do not 
learn language voluntarily; we absorb it. This is 
primarily true of children. In later life we accomplish 
something by our own volition, although even then the 
most of our acquirements are involuntary. Hut children 

just breathe in language. They make no effort whatever ; 
M they toil not, neither do they spin." but neither Solomon 



la no lack 101 

nor any other grown-up man can compete v/ith diem. 
Let a man and his six-year old boy go to France. Turn 
the child loose among French children of his own age, and 
let die father devote his time to studying the French 
language. In one year the boy wO] speak French 
idiomatically as French children eight years old speak it 
The father's French will probably be of die pigeon Eng- 
lish variety- The man tries, the ch i Id does not. and the 
child comes out ahead. Incidental teaching is alv. 
more effective than formal teaching, and more lasting 
in its influence. 

v ; this part of the problem as applied to schools 

works out thus: Our children get a little direct teaching 
during the school day, and incidentally hear a little good 

English. After school they proceed to the street and the 

home, where the real effective teaching is done. They 
bring to school the slovenly pronunciation and the 
slovenly English of the street and many homes, and 
the poor teacher labors wearily and to a large extent 
unsuccessfully to undo the work of the children's other 
teachers. The wonder is that he accomplishes anything 
at all. If it could be so arranged that a child would 
never hear anything but good English, the teacher's 
work would be comparatively easy. 

There is a second possible explanation included in the 

A under the teacher':-, control. It involves an 

unknown quantity, one element in the problem that 

educators have not yet seized. It is a fairly safe rule 

to follow in teaching, that when large bodies of children, 



202 BETTER SCHOOLS 

here, there, and everywhere, resist the teaching of a 
certain subject, nature is thus indicating that the subject 
should not be taught at all or should be taught in some 
other way. The work of children in language presents just 
this phenomenon. It would seem that the childish mind 
in grappling with so many things as are involved in the 
writing of a composition breaks down under the strain. 
The child must furnish thought material, he must de- 
termine the construction, he must arrange it on paper in 
good form, he must think of capitals, spelling, and punctu- 
ation, and finally he must perform the act of writing, 
and that, in the case of many children, is enough in itself. 
What is the inference ? The conviction is growing that 
we demand this kind of work far two soon; we must 
be more patient and wait a little longer in the life of the 
child before asking all that is indicated above. Perhaps 
he needs more maturity than he is able to offer at the age 
at which we make our demands. We have certainly 
found this so in other subjects, notably in arithmetic. 
This is a serious question. The complications are too 
many. The child has to give his primary attention to too 
many details. He cannot attend to them all satis- 
factorily at the same time. 

One thing is sure, and that is that interest disappears 
if the work becomes too difficult. There is a tendency on 
the part of teachers to go in advance of the child's 
spontaneity. This is always attended with a loss of self- 
activity on the part of the child. If the child has to 
wrestle with a difficult subject, then the effort that he 



LANGUAGE 203 

is required to expend, growing out of the difficulty of 
the subject, is so much subtracted from the form and 
grammatical construction and expression of the composi- 
tion. Spontaneity vanishes, and with it interest. 

One of the serious facts of education is the teacher's 
unwillingness to look facts in the face. Educators have 
either shut their eyes to the results that should have 
been regarded by them as data in a most scientific sense, 
or they have said that the results they have reached are 
all that can be attained. 

It is equally true that whether we recognize the facts 
or not, we have been unwilling to be guided by them. 
We have spun our courses of study from our own brains 
and without reference to ascertainable data. Before us 
for years and years have sat the children. They have 
told us plainly whether our theories were producing 
desirable results or not. But with this vastness of data 
at our disposal, we have been governed not by the facts, 
but by tradition or pure theory, which we have been 
unwilling to abandon even in the presence of failure. 

This unwillingness to accept the facts of the classroom, 
this perverse disposition to construct courses of study not 
based on facts, and to decline to subject them to the 
test of facts is and has been the gravest evil of our system 
of education. Everywhere, and in every subject, we are 
persisting in the use of study courses and methods of 
teaching that are manifestly not producing the desired 
results. In any other line of activity we abandon a 
method that does not reach the end in view. In educa- 



204 BETTER SCHOOLS 

tion we persist in it. Our case is that of the farmer who 
sees his neighbor's fields bearing rich harvests as a 
result of the rotation of crops, while his own farm yields 
scanty returns, and yet persists in sowing the same crops 
in the same fields year after year. The remedy is 
obvious ; stop doing it, let us adjust our methods to the 
facts and stop expecting the facts to adjust themselves 
to our methods. 

Many good people, teachers and others, say that the 
language of children is suffering because grammar is not 
thoroughly taught now. As a matter of fact the language 
of children is much better than when grammar was more 
persistently taught. The gain is not sufficient to occasion 
hysterics of joy among us teachers, but it is a gain. 

The older grammars and many of the newer grammars 
state that grammar teaches the art of speaking and 
writing our language correctly. Really there is very 
little of the grammar that has any relation to correct 
speaking. English grammar is to be thought of from two 
standpoints : the one, its use in aiding pupils to write 
correctly, and the other, as a formal study for its own 
sake or to enable a student to analyze an English sentence, 
or to begin the study of other languages. It is generally 
agreed that the amount of knowledge necessary from the 
second point of view is not necessary from the 
first point of view. In earlier days, in teaching 
English grammar, the systematic presentation came first 
and the practice in the use of grammatical construction 
afterwards. Then came the so-called reform, and an 



LANGUAGE 205 

effort was made to approximate to the method of teaching 
foreign languages. In the earlier history of the reform 
it was assumed that grammar could be thrown out alto- 
gether, but gradually pedagogical opinion drifted back 
to the use of more or less grammar in the earlier stages 
of the study of English. Out of this condition of things 
sprang the brood of language books. The authors of these 
books, having discarded grammatical considerations, 
expended a great deal of effort, and exhibited much in- 
genuity in filling their books with unproductive material. 
As the considerations of grammar reasserted their 
importance, these authors introduced grammar little by 
little and in accordance with their own views of what was 
necessary. 

Now there are errors that grammar does help us to 
remedy. They are popular errors, and we must have 
enough grammar to enable us to attack these errors. 
An example is non-agreement in person and number of 
subject and predicate. Then there are subordinate 
errors not often made. An example is the confusion 
in the use of "who," "which," and "that." Then 
there are errors seldom or never made. An example 
is the agreement when the antecedent is a collective 
noun. Finally, there are errors that we could not make 
if we tried. For example, "Prepositions govern the 
objective case." In Latin, or German, the government 
by the preposition is a serious matter, but what about 
the English noun ? Is it possible to make any errors ? 

The real question to be decided is : is it sensible to 



206 BETTER SCHOOLS 

spend a large amount of time in studying matters that 
have no practical bearing on the child's speech ? Has he 
so much time that we can afford to squander it thus? 
Yet this is what the grammarians demand. A little 
grammar is very necessary. For example : The ex- 
travagant use of connectives is an exceedingly popular 
error. One of the first things to do in the teaching of 
language is to train the child to use short sentences. 
Then many of his errors will not be possible. The well- 
known tendency of children is toward long, involved sen- 
tences, difficult of correction, and this is the occasion of 
many of the grammatical errors and other crudities seen 
in the work of the pupils of the upper grades. 

The number of common errors among children is 
comparatively few. Some time ago, a statistical study of 
the errors most frequently made by children was con- 
ducted in the schools of an American city. It was 
found that there were six elementary considerations of 
grammar on which, if we place careful and concentrated 
attention, we shall clear up 80 per cent of the errors. 
But this is not what is done. We jumble all kinds of 
irrelevant considerations in grammar in with those 
that are relevant. Thus we succeed in doing two things : 
first, we waste precious time on matter that leads no- 
where; second, we prevent the child's concentrating and 
drilling on the points of grammar that he does need to 
master. This is one of the causes of our poor work in 
English. Why not find out the common errors of child- 
hood, concentrate on them, teach the grammar that 



LANGUAGE 207 

belongs to them, and extirpate them ? It can easily be 
done. This would revolutionize our purposeless grammar 
work. For example, the pronoun would be found to 
require careful attention, the noun very little. The 
possessive case of the noun is a danger point, but the 
boy could not make a mistake in the nominative if he 
tried to do so. 

The grammar was made for the child, and not the child 
for the grammar. If this is not the case, it ought to be. 

It is important that pupils should make a critical study 
of our language through grammar. But let us place this 
critical study where it belongs, in the high school. It 
has nothing to do with obtaining a ready and accurate 
use of our language. A suspicion forces itself on one's 
mind that our present methods in grammar take little 
account of the fact of the child's mental development. 
We have skillful teachers, and our teachers work hard 
enough. I suspect that if the children could speak 
they would say, "You are taking up the consideration 
of difficult matters before the mind is prepared for them ; 
you therefore fail and must fail." 

Again, the teaching of language is frequently character- 
ized by almost utter lack of purpose. Such a charge 
cannot be made against any other study. In arithmetic, 
for example, long division is supposed, at least, to be 
mastered at a certain time. In language teaching, nothing 
is supposed to be mastered at any time. Every question 
is always open, and is a part of the course of study to the 
end. The teacher teaches everything and all at the same 



208 BETTER SCHOOLS 

time. The daily lesson is based on a hand-to-mouth con- 
ception. To concentrate on a given subject, plan for a 
three months' or a six months' campaign and master that 
subject is not a part of our conception of teaching lan- 
guage. Concentration counts for as much in the teaching 
of language as in any other field of endeavor. The weak- 
ness of our teaching is that the teacher ignores nothing. 
It is demonstrable that the elimination of the unnecessary 
connectives in children's speech can be accomplished if 
the teacher does nothing else in grammar for a cer- 
tain period. But the teacher does not do this. He 
corrects errors in connectives and in everything else, 
because he is teaching everything else. As a result, the 
pupil's attention is scattered, and he becomes proficient 
in nothing. 

Another consideration of the utmost importance is this : 
The underrating of the function of oral work plays a very 
important part in retarding progress in language. In 
other words, we are in too much of a hurry to use the 
pencil. Here, again, we are in the presence of the data 
that the children furnish. The child comes to school 
using language freely. As soon as possible we put a pencil 
into his hand, and freeze him up. In a short time he has 
stopped talking. In order to have accurate language we 
must first have language of some kind. If the children 
will not furnish it, what are we to do ? There is nothing 
left but to provide material of our own. But inasmuch as 
the child is going to talk his own language, why not start 
with his own language? In a word, fluency antedates 



LANGUAGE 209 

accuracy. In extinguishing fluency we cripple our 
teaching for all time. 

All essential errors are made in speaking. When the 
child writes, he merely records these errors on paper. 
Why let them be recorded at all? The possibility of 
practice in the way of correction is great in oral language 
and scanty in written language, just because we can talk 
so much more than we can write. The habit of fluency is 
favored in talking ; it is quenched in writing. In writing 
the child is occupied with a new set of mental coordi- 
nations involved in the act of writing. He has little 
energy to spare for thought or language. In speaking, his 
whole attention can be concentrated on the thought and 
language. 

This is a fair illustration of the tendency to go ahead 
of the child's development. It is an educational disease. 
In "Dombey and Son," it is said of Dr. Blimber's school 
that "It was a great hot-house, in which there was a 
forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys 
bloomed before their time. Mental green-peas were 
produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all 
the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour 
ones, too) were common at untimely seasons, and from 
mere sprouts of bushes. Under Doctor Blimber's 
cultivation every description of Greek and Latin vege- 
table was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the 
frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence 
at all." 

The B limber germ is still active, although its toxic 



2IO BETTER SCHOOLS 

qualities are somewhat modified. We shall grow wiser, as 
wise, perhaps, as Sam Lawson, the philosopher of "Old- 
town Folks," whose theory was that "Some things can't 
be druv." 

Many teachers do too much of the child's work in 
teaching language, as in other subjects. The faculties 
grow by exercise, but exercise implies resistance. How 
can the child encounter resistance if the teacher does his 
work? To illustrate: The child in his composition 
has not commenced his sentence with a capital. The 
teacher points out the error with a blue pencil. Why ? 
Why not let him find it out himself ? He will grow strong 
if he grapples with the composition himself ; he will grow 
weak if we do it for him. No one can learn to skate if 
another does the tumbling for him. Self-help counts for 
as much in teaching language as it does in skating. 

These evils are real, they are venerable, they are 
widespread. But with a correct diagnosis a remedy is 
possible. To understand our disease is to bring the 
cure in sight. 

The remedy seems to be this : Frankly acknowledge 
our wrong-headedness ; cast tradition to the winds; cast 
aside any method, however ancient and respectable, 
that does not produce the results ; sit at the feet of the 
children, learn what they can tell us of themselves; 
know precisely what we wish to accomplish and concen- 
trate. 

I have long held the opinion that we teach many 
grammatical errors that children commit very seldom, 



LANGUAGE 211 

and others that they do not commit at all. I have 
a theory that if we could get a sufficiently large body 
of data we would find that there is, among children, 
a degree of popularity of error, so to speak, and that 
if this could be ascertained the work of the teacher 
might be concentrated on the most important errors, 
making unnecessary the work he is accustomed to spend 
on errors that have no practical existence. I have in 
mind, also, the methods by which modern languages 
are taught, in which grammatical constructions are 
taken up, not in a logical, but rather a psychological 
order, an order determined by the child's mental power 
and the possibilities of practice with relation to error. 
A good German introductory book, for instance, will 
introduce grammatical construction in accordance with 
the author's views as to the ability of the pupils to take 
up the work, the orderly and systematic presentation 
of the subject of German grammar being given a place in 
the back of the book for present reference and possible 
future study. 

I think that any one who investigates what has really 
been accomplished by our grammar schools in the matter 
of good English construction will be very much dis- 
appointed. The high school teachers who receive the 
grammar school graduates are unanimous in their con- 
demnation. They do not talk very much about the 
methods, but they do talk about the outcome. The 
young men and women who reach the high school, so 
these teachers say, know next to nothing about English 



212 BETTER SCHOOLS 

grammar. In the attempt to teach Latin, German, or 
French, the difficulties of the high school are enormously 
increased by the total ignorance of English grammar on 
the part of the pupil, and the teachers of English in the 
high school insist that they are unable to point out the 
pupil's errors in the writing of English because he does 
not know the language by which those errors are to be 
described. I do not find high school teachers unfair in 
this matter. They admit that young children cannot 
take up the analytical consideration of English grammar, 
but they claim that at some time before the student 
reaches the high school he ought to have had a reasonable 
course in that subject. 

Now, as already stated, English grammar is to be 
thought of from two standpoints: the one its use in 
aiding the pupils to write correctly, and the other as 
a formal study for its own sake or to enable a student 
to analyze an English sentence, or to begin the study of 
other languages. It is generally agreed that the amount of 
knowledge necessary from the second point of view is not 
necessary from the first point of view. Professor Whit- 
ney sums up the matter thus : "To make the young use 
their own tongues with accuracy and force, some of the 
rudimentary distinctions and rules of grammar are 
conveniently taught; but that is not the study of 
grammar, and it will not bear the intrusion of much 
formal grammar without being spoiled of its own ends." 
The questions to be decided are as follows : Granting 
that the systematic study of grammar should not begin 



LANGUAGE 213 

until a certain age, how much grammar, or rather what 
points in grammar, are to be considered before that time ? 
Can they be considered independently of the rest of 
the grammar, and in what order and by what method 
should these considerations be taken up ? When should 
this consideration of the subject cease and the formal 
consideration begin ? 

I do not claim to do more than offer a beginning in 
answering these questions, but so far as my study throws 
light on them, I confess that the conclusions to which I 
am forced are startling. They disarrange all my previous 
views, and point to a revision of the whole language cur- 
riculum and the language textbooks. 

The investigation was conducted in the following way : 
On the twentieth of January, 1902, I requested every 
teacher in Trenton, New Jersey (where I was then 
Superintendent) , from the fourth to the eighth grades in- 
clusive, to have a composition prepared by every pupil. 
When there are nine grades below the high school, one 
must be added to the numbering of grades in this paper, 
the fourth being read as the fifth, etc. Each teacher 
was to follow her customary plan in giving out ordinary 
class work. The composition might be a reproduction 
or an original composition, as the teacher might choose. 
I asked each teacher to mark every composition thor- 
oughly in accordance with the scheme presented in this 
study as Exhibit A. 



214 better sctiools 

Exhibit a 

Schedule of Urkoks in YVkitini; Knc.ush 

i. No sentence. (Subject or predicate left out.) 

2. Extravagant use of connectives, making long sentences. 

3. Wrong use of article, a or an, 

4. Unnecessary use oj article, 

5. Non agreement in person and number of subject and predi- 
cate. Simple cases. 

6. Non agreement when subject consists of two or mere nouns or 
pronouns connected by "<///</." 

7. Non agreement when there are two or more nominative! 
qualified by " every," " each," " no," or " not." 

8. Non agreement When tWO Or more singular nominatives are 

separated by " or," " nor," " as well as," or other disjunctives. 

9. Non agreement when subject is a collective noun. 

10. Wrong formation of possessive case. (Nouns.) 

1 1. Wrong formation of possessive case, (Pronouns,) 

12. Wrong use- of possessive case when two or more nouns are 
connected by " and." 

13. Errors in the pronoun in the objective cose. 

14. Agreement of pronoun with antecedent in gender, number, 
and person. Simple case. 

15. Agreement 0! pronoun with antecedent when the latter 

consists of tWO or more nouns in the singular number, whether 

connected by " and " or " not." 

16. Agreement with a plural antecedent consisting of two ox 
more nouns qualified by "each," '* every," " no," or " not." 

17. Agreement with antecedent consisting of two or more nouns, 
separated by "or," "nor," "as well as," or any other disjunctive. 

is. Agreement when the antecedent is a collective noun. 

19. No antecedent. 

20. Antecedent doubtful. 

21. Errors in use of subjunctive mode. 

22. Wrong use of or omission oj " to " in infinitive mode. 

23. Errors in tense, as " drunk " for " drank," " begin " for 
" began." 



LANGUAGE 215 

24. Use of imperfect tense for perfect participle. 

25. Errors in use of u shall " or " will." 

27. Errors in use of " lie " and " lay," " set " and " sit." 

28. Agreement in number of adjectives with nouns, when 
adjectives imply a unit or plurality, as " this " and " these." 

29. Confusion of " each other " with "one another." 

30. Use of " but " instead of " than " after " other," " otherwise," 
or "else." 

31. Use of adjectives when adverbs are required, as mean, meanly. 
3 2 . Use of adverb after a verb when an adjective is required; as, " the 

flower smells sweetly," instead of sweet. 

33. Use of superlatives when only two objects are compared. 

34. Use of " them " for " those." 
35- Use of " like " for " as." 

36. Confusion in use of " who," " which" and " that." 

37. Use of two negatives. 

38. Use of " to what " instead of " to that." 

39. Use of " but " instead of " that " or " if." 

40. Misuse of prepositions. 

41. Use of " between " for " among." 

42. In a sentence containing two or more words or two or more 
clauses, each of which requires a different particle to connect it with 
the conclusion of the sentence, the appropriate connecting particle 
must be used after each word or sentence. 

Violation of this. Illustration. He has made alterations and 
additions to the work. The word "in" should follow alterations. 
This is a very common error. 

43. Use of superfluous words. 

44. Abbreviations incorrectly used. 1 

I tried in preparing the above scheme to cover all 
reasonable errors in speech, errors that most people were 
supposed to make in writing and speaking at one time or 
another. The errors in the scheme are indicated by 

1 Not considered in result because not a grammatical error. 



2l6 BETTER SCHOOLS 

description and number. The teachers were asked to 
indicate the errors by number and to make a list of the 
number of errors of each kind. Two errors of one kind 
were counted as two errors in the total, etc. I also 
urged the teachers not to consider the results in this 
work as a criticism on themselves, and I asked the 
fourth-grade teachers to consider their compositions 
from exactly the same standpoint, so far as the errors 
in question were concerned, as an eighth-grade or high 
school composition should be considered ; that is to 
say, no allowance was to be made for the pupil's youth. 
I simply wanted to know what errors he committed, 
whether young or old. 

These compositions were written and criticized, and 
the results were tabulated. The children furnished us 
with 2S07 compositions and 8481 errors. The tabula- 
tion showed the number of errors of each kind for each 
grade and for all grades. I then subjected the figures 
to the following treatment. I found the percentage of 
each error in a given grade by dividing the number of 
cases of that kind of error by the total number of cases of 
error in the grade. I also found the percentage of errors 
of each kind for all the grades taken together. 

A remarkable fact immediately developed, namely, 
that for sixteen kinds of errors there was no percent- 
age of error at all. That is to say, there were either 
no errors or else there were so few as not to reach one 
half per cent. In the case of twelve kinds of errors 
there was a percentage of only one. I consider this 



LANGUAGE 21 7 

a revelation. There were only forty- three kinds of errors 
all told, and in twenty-eight of those the per cent of 
error did not reach if; that is to say, in 65 per cent 
of the kinds of errors, the result was scarcely worth 
considering. Therefore the strength of the correction 
must be placed on only fifteen kinds of errors, or 35 per 
cent of the whole number. Here we get our first glimpse 
of the enormous waste of labor and time in teaching 
English grammar so far as its use in speaking or writing 
is concerned. 

In this connection I cannot help referring to one fact 
in the investigation that brought to my face a broad 
smile. Notice error 42 : "In a sentence containing two 
or more words or two or more clauses, each of which 
requires a different particle to connect it with the conclu- 
sion of the sentence, the appropriate connecting particle 
must be used after each word or clause." The illus- 
tration given of this is, "He has made alterations and 
additions to the work." The word in should follow 
alterations. When I issued my instructions I thought it 
necessary in this specific case to put the teachers on 
their guard, and so I inserted this warning: "This is a 
very common error." When the returns for the city 
came in, I found that in the case of error 42 there were 
just 47 instances out of a grand total of 8481. This 
shows how much I knew. It illustrated the wide gap 
between theory and experience. . It is a type of what 
might be called a priori grammar teaching, which places 
the same amount of emphasis on all sort of errors, 



2lS BETTER SCHOOLS 

when the farts easily ascertained show that many errors 
are not made by children. 
I now come to the discussion of errors that were made, 

In Exhibit B 1 have arranged these errors in groups, so 
that their significance may be seen. The arrangement 
of groups follows generally the order of popularity of 
errors indicated in said groups. There are eight general 
headings. The first column indicates the number of 
the error; the second, a suggestion of the title; the 
third, the percentage of error; the fourth, fifth, sixth, 
seventh, and eighth, the number of errors made in eaeh 
grade by eaeh hundred pupils in eaeh grade. 

Exhibit B 
Classification of Errors 

Crade 
No. of Per Cent Number of Errors per 

Error Error of Error 100 Pupils per Crude 

GROUP A 4th $tk oth rth Sth 

2 Excessive use of connectives . 16 66 43 52 27 10 

(.ROUP B. Superfluous Words 
43 Superfluous words 1 5 39 33 51 27 63 

GROUP C. Imperfect Sentence 

5 Non-agreement of subject and pred- 

icate 8 

1 Subject or predicate omitted . . 6 

6 Compound subject connected by 

"and" 1 

9 Subject a collective noun . . . . 1 

16 71 60 4S 28 15 



LANGUAGE 219 

GROUP D. Verb 

23 Errors in tense, "drunk" for 

"drank" 14 

24 Imperfect tense for perfect parti- 

ciple 4 

27 Errors in " lie " and " lay," etc . 2 
22 Wrong use or omission of "to" in 

infinitive 1 

21 Wrong use of subjunctive .... 1 

25 "Shall" and "will" _i 

22 87 69 66 47 19 

GROUP E. Nouns and Pronouns 

SUB-GROUP. ANTECEDENTS 

14 Agreement of antecedent and pro- 
noun 2 

20 Antecedent doubtful .... 4 
19 No antecedent _2 

TOTAL ANTECEDENTS .8 I929321518 

SUB-GROUP. POSSESSIVES 

10 Possessive nouns 4 

n Possessive Pronouns ••••_! 

TOTAL POSSESSIVES .5 16 24 1 5 14 7 

SUB-GROUP. MISCELLANEOUS 

13 Wrong objective case, pronoun . . . 1 
36 Confusion of "who," "which," and 

"that" _2 

Group E Total nouns and pronouns 16 43 64 59 37 31 

GROUP F. Prepositions 
40 Misuse of prepositions .... 5 
42 Varying of particle, etc ... . _i 

6 16 27 16 13 12 



220 BETTER SCHOOLS 

GROUP G. Articles 

3 Wrong use of articles 3 

4 Unnecessary use of article ... 1 



4 16 13 13 11 



GROUP H. Adverbs 

37 Two negatives 1 

31 Adjectives for adverbs .... 1 

32 Adverbs for adjectives .... _i 



Group A refers to the use of long sentences, with 
extravagant use of connectives, 16 per cent. Group B 
relates to the use of superfluous words, 15 per cent. 
Group C relates to those errors that belong to the 
formation of the sentence. It includes four kinds of 
errors, and sums up to 16 per cent. Group D relates to 
verbs ; the percentage is 2 2 . Group E relates to errors 
in nouns and pronouns, 16 per cent. It is subdivided 
into three sub-groups, relating, respectively, to antece- 
dents, 8 per cent, possessives, 5 per cent, and miscella- 
neous, 3 per cent. Group F relates to errors in preposi- 
tions, 6 per cent. Group G takes in errors in the use of 
the article, 4 per cent. Group H relates to adverbs, 
3 per cent. 

The errors are considered under three classes. Princi- 
pal or essential errors are printed in full-faced type on 
both Exhibits A and B. Subordinate errors are printed 
in Exhibits A and B in italics. Errors not made at all 
appear on Exhibit A in plain type. They do not appear 
on Exhibit B. 



LANGUAGE 221 

Let us now examine these results a little in detail, and 
while doing so sketch a faint outline of a course of study. 

Group A, the extravagant use of connectives, seems to 
me to be indicated as the proper point of beginning, not 
only by the evident popularity of that error, but also by 
good sense. As to popularity, the error supplies 16 per 
cent of the total. I have always taught that one of the 
first things to do in the teaching of grammar is to train 
the child to use short sentences. Then many of his 
errors are not possible. In oral and written work it is 
important to eliminate many of the connectives that 
children use. As I have already said, the well-known 
tendency of children is toward long, involved sentences, 
and this is the occasion of many of the grammatical 
errors and other crudities seen in the work of the pupils 
of the upper grades. 

First, therefore, the pupils' involved sentences must 
be cut down to short sentences. I would keep at this 
until the end is reasonably attained, — and I know from 
experience that it can be obtained, — and afterward I 
would strike at the evil every time it showed itself. 
Suppose this is done. Is it not apparent that the danger 
of making imperfect sentences is very largely reduced? 
If a teacher should concentrate on this point for a good 
while, ignoring other points of grammar, is it not con- 
ceivable that in the course of a short time, say a couple 
of years, a good many errors would disappear of them- 
selves? If it be objected that this would result in a 
jerky style, let the tendency of the pupil to unite sentences 



222 BETTEB SCHOOLS 

be borne in mind. Wlien the teacher takes off the 
pressure, (he pupil will unite them fast enough. 

The evil of superfluous words in a sentence (Group B) 
seems Indicated as the next point of attack. The group 
furnished 15 per eenl of the total number of errors. It 
OUghl to be said, in passing, that this is not, strictly 
speaking, a grammatical error. It is, nevertheless, so 

prolific a source of grammatical error that consideration 
of it cannot be left out in such a discussion as this. The 
tendency to superfluous words is obviously a matter that 
must be looked after continuously throughout the child's 
whole course. Yet I believe it can be so reduced that 
the effort during the latter pari of the course will mean 
watchfulness on the part of the teacher, rather than 
Specific teaching. And besides, the superfluous words 
that occur in young children's sentences are very 
frequently errors of grammar rather than of rhetoric, 
and are easily corrected. When we have accomplished 
a considerable elimination of superfluous words, I fancy 
we shall have; done more. Many errors of grammar arise 
from I he fart that the sentences are complicated and 
the child loses track of himself. 

There are certain interesting figures concerning this 
evil, to which attention should be called. Look at 
Exhibit B, Group B, where the results are given. The 
figures under the Grades 4, 5, etc., indicate the number 
of errors per hundred pupils in said grades. Under the 
fourth grade notice that we have thirty-nine errors per 
hundred pupils; in the fifth, very nearly the same, 



LANGUAGE 223 

thirty-three ; in the sixth grade, fifty-one errors, and in 
the eighth, sixty-three. The drop in the seventh is rather 
odd. The general trend of these figures teaches clearly 
a serious fact, viz. that we are making no progress at 
present in reducing this evil (superfluous words). There 
is a general increase from the fourth to the eighth grades. 
Even in the fourth grade the evil is not insignificant. It 
takes up 11 per cent of the errors in the fourth grade. 
I read the lesson thus : The work must be begun in the 
fourth grade, with the expectation that attention to the 
matter is to be constantly insisted upon. If this be 
done, and concentration guide the teacher's work, I can- 
not see why, when the sixth grade is finished, the evil 
may not be measurably overcome, requiring thereafter 
only vigilance. 

If we add the two groups, A and B, do we not get some- 
thing of a shock to find that 31 per cent, or nearly one 
third, of the errors in children's compositions, as actually 
found, relate to matters so simple, so easily corrected, and 
so vital? I cannot help thinking of Mark Twain's story 
of the man. who was confined for ten years in a lonesome 
dungeon. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. lie 
opened the door and walked out. 

Let us now analyze Group C, which relates to the 
sentence. This group includes errors to the extent of 16 
per cent of the total; but notice that two kinds of errors 
in the group alone use up 14 per cent of the 16. They 
are: first, non-agreement in person and number, subject 
and predicate (simple casej ; second, no sentence, subject 



224 BETTER SCHOOLS 

or predicate Left out, Let it be noticed that these are 
errors in simple sentences. Now mark the other two 
errors, those in which there arc complications. They are 

the non-agreement where the subject consists of two or 

mori- nouns or pronouns connected by and, i per cent, 
and the non -agreement when the subject is a collective 
noun, i per cent. Here are complications on which we 
have been accustomed to expend a great (leal of energy. 
Altogether, the per cents toot up to the enormous total 
of 2. lint there are other cases of non agreement not 
indicated at all on Exhibit B, because the per cents footed 

up to o. See Exhibit A. Such are errors involved when 

nominatives are connected by or or nor (No. 8), or when 
each and every are involved (No. 7). 

1 think in the consideration of this class of errors we 
have a Hash light on the whole subject. Here, in Group 
C, is a total of id per cent in matters relating to the 

construction of a sentence, subject and predicate: 14 per 

Cent relates to sentences simple in construction, and the 
Other m;iss of errors to complicated subjects and predi- 
cates; the latter collection, to which we give so much of 
our valuable time, sums up to 2 per cent. I say, does 
not some such law as this concerning the teaching of 

language begin to emerge? First, see that your sentences 

are simple ; second, concentrate your attention on simple 
considerations, and leave the perplexities to take care of 

themselves by and by, when you have cleared away the 

great mass of inaccuracy, and when the child has the 
brains to understand them. Is that not sensible? And 



LANGUAGE 2 2$ 

is it not fully justified by the figures I am now offering? 
If the child can form the habit of, first, always having a 
subject and predicate, and, second, of having that sub- 
ject and predicate agree, the one with the other, in all 
simple cases, will he not have also formed a habit of 
general accuracy regarding the sentence, which will 
make it very easy to attend properly to complications 
when the time comes; and may we not, for the present, 
ignore such complications and leave them for a greater 
maturity of mind ? Here are three propositions that 
this discussion tends to put in the light of facts: First, 
many errors are so complex that children rarely make 
them; second, when they are made, the children are so 
immature that they cannot understand the explanation 
when it is offered ; third, if the errors could be explained, 
the pupils do not have practice enough in the said errors 
to enforce their correction. 

The indication, then, for the course of study in this case 
seems clear. Take up the agreement of subject and 
predicate only in the two cases making up the M per cent, 
indicated by full-faced type, and ignore the 2 per cent. 

I would concentrate on this subject until if is under- 
stood, — and so simple a consideration can be understood. 
I would dwell on it until it has become all but automatic 
to carry out the instructions. Then, when we have cut 
the sentences down, disposed of conna tives and super- 
fluous words, and made clear the simple elements in 
the construction of the sentences, we have laid the basis 
of teaching the rest of the grammar with absolute ease. 
Q 



220 BETTEB SCHOOLS 

Every high school teacher and every upper-grade gram- 
mar school teacher knows that the serious weakness on the 
part of the children is the failure to recognize the sentence 
as a unit. The plan is to proceed from the sentence to 

its parts, ami to study these parts only as constituents 

of the sentence. Every new acquisition is to be gained 
from the consideration of a multitude of simple sentences. 
Notice in passing that there is involved merely a simple 
subject ami predicate, ami furthermore, not a modified 
subject or predicate. The subject ami predicate may, 

and in many cases will, be modified ; the point is that 

the teacher is to pay no attention to the modifications. 
The teacher may then grapple with the three great 

Considerations, noun, pronoun, and verb; and, 1 believe, 
they should be taken in the order named. But there 
are limitations. In the first place, Consider the verb 

(Croup D), see Exhibit B. Here are six kinds of errors. 

Rut there are great discrepancies. The total percentage 
involved is 23, and out o{ that as much as i.j per cent 
is taken up with such a simple consideration as errors in 
tense {drunk for drank } begun for began). Then we take 
a big drop down to .} per cent, and come to the use of the 
perfect tense for perfect participle, which is very nearly 
the same error. Grouping these similar errors, we have 

iS per cent. They are emphasized by being printed in 
full faced type. Then we get down to the insignificant 

percentage of 2, in the use oi lie and /</y, sit and set, 1 

Confess that the fewness oi errors o\ this kind surprises 
me. What will the elementary language books do if we 



LANGUAGE 227 

take out all the pages devoted to lie and lay, set and sit? 

The exhibit reaches bottom in three oilier errors, e;n h 
registering i per Cent. First, there is the wrong use or 

omission of to in the infinitive mode; second, the wrong 

use of the subjunctive mode; and, finally, errors in tin; 
use of shall and will. 

Now for a moment consider the first two errors of this 
group (18 per cent), taking in the errors in the irregular 
forms of the verb, and consider that this is SU( h a Simple 
kind of error that it is easy to handle if we are disposed to 
concentrate. Are not results in sight when such a view of 
the case is taken? My suggestion is that this view be 
taken and that the verb be considered only in its rela- 
tion to tense, and mainly in its relations to two of its 
tenses, the imperfect and the perfect, and to the participle. 

In the case of nouns and pronouns, the subject of 
the next group (E), I note the following facts: The 
total per cent of errors is 16. I have divided this section 
into three sub-sections. The first relates to the ante- 
cedents of pronouns and takes in three headings: the 
agreement of pronoun with its antecedent, antecedent 
doubtful, no antecedent. Total, 8 per cent. The se< ond 
relates to the possessive of nouns (4 per cent) and pro- 
nouns (1 per cent). The next two considerations relate 
to the form of the objective, 1 per cent, and the confusion 
of who, which, and that, 2 per cent. Let us select from the 
whole group the sub-group of antecedents as one essential, 
and the possessive nouns as another, Ignore the rest., and 
go on. The question of the antecedent of pronouns, often 



228 BETTER SCHOOLS 

quite difficult, is not very difficult if we wait, probably 
until the sixth grade is reached, and if the ground is 
prepared so that we may concentrate on this point. 

The sixth group, F, relates to prepositions. It takes 

up 6 per cent oi the errors, of which the misuse of 

prepositions covers 5. The other 1 per cent refers to 

the varying of the particle iii a sentence containing two 
or more words, or two or more clauses, each demanding a 
different particle. Correct the 5 per cent item. Ignore 
the 1 per cent. 

The subject of prepositions belongs, I consider, to the 
latter part oi the sixth grade, or to the seventh. It is 
a difficult subject, even for older pupils. It is always 
an interesting subject, if it is properly conducted. The 
most that a teacher can succeed in doing is, I think, to get 
into the pupil's head the idea that there is a difference 
in force in the use of prepositions, and to induce him to 
think of it. The control of this matter is a pretty late 
development. 

We come down very low in the next group, G, which 
relates to errors in the use of articles, 4 per cent, in- 
cluding the wrong use of an article, 3 per cent, unneces- 
sary use of article, 1 per cent. I should say, pay no 
attention to this group, or the next and last, which can 
muster but 3 per cent of errors. This is the adverb 
group, and Includes the dreaded double negative, and 
the unpardonable sin of saying "badly" for "bad," and 
the reverse. Is not a bugbear suggested? 

It will be borne in mind, I trust, that I am confining 



LANG [J AGE 229 

my attention to grammar. The earliest attention of a 
teaeher, of course, should be given to matters that relate 
to the form of the composition, say margin, indentation, 

the beginning of a sentence with a capital and terminat- 
ing with a period, and the capitalization of pronoun /. 
I think that these matters should be insisted on, at first, 
to the exclusion of Considerations of grammar. 

Let us now sum up. According to the showing of 
this investigation, there are just seven questions in 
grammar that should occupy the teacher's attention as 
far as correction of speech is concerned ; the excessive 
use of connectives, 16 per cent; the use of superfluous 
words, 15 per cent; the relation of subject and predicate, 
14 per cent ; errors in tense involving the imperfect and 
perfect for the most part, 18 per cent; considerations 
relating to the antecedent of the pronoun, 8 per cent; 
the possessive of the noun, 4 per cent ; and the misuse of 
prepositions, 5 per cent. Total, 80 per cent, leaving 20 
per cent of errors scattered variously through fifteen 
other considerations. Are not the limitations of the 
held and the character of the errors that make up the 80 
per cent instructive, not to say startling ? 

Here are the points of grammar that would be de- 
manded: Conjunctions (copulative onlyj ; subject and 
predicate ; perfect, imperfect,, and present tenses of verb ; 
relative pronoun in relation to antecedent; possessive 
nouns, prepositions. Here are six elementary considera- 
tions of grammar on which if we place careful and concen- 
trated attention we shall clear up 80 per cent of the errors. 



230 BETTER SCHOOLS 

Let no one say that to teach these matters we must 
also teach the other facts of grammar in order that we 
may understand them. Every teacher knows that, 
except to a very trifling extent, such a statement is not 
correct. It is not necessary to teach mode to understand 
tense. To teach the imperfect tense of a verb it is 
simply necessary to teach the verb and then the tense. 
It is not necessary to teach the objective to understand 
the possessive. Some one may say that it is necessary 
to teach proper nouns in order that we may teach capital- 
ization. Is that really so? Cannot we say that the 
name of a person or a country should begin with a capital 
without teaching grammar ? In a word, simplicity in 
teaching is imperative. Grammatical principles must be 
taught. They are best taught when too much is not at- 
tempted. It is not a question of how much ground is cov- 
ered, but a proper selection of material and of emphasis. 

How much of a book could be made out of the seven 
considerations presented by this study, involving the 
aforesaid six elementary considerations in grammar? 
Let each teacher make such a book, with proper develop- 
ment and sufficient number of exercises ; the book will 
hardly be thick enough to make it worth any publisher's 
while to publish it. 

How much grammar is left out? It would try the 
patience of any reader if I should answer this question. 
In the Trenton course of study, which I issued, I wrote as 
follows: "The pupil when he reaches this [seventh] 
grade should be able to recognize the parts of speech and 



LANGUAGE 23 I 

should know simple definitions. He should know the 
modifications of the noun, pronoun, and verb (except 
modes, tenses, and voice), and the functions of the adverb, 
adjective, preposition, and conjunction ; he should 
understand the construction of a simple sentence and 
be able to analyze it, and should understand the com- 
pound subject and predicate." I thought when I wrote 
this paragraph four years ago that I was exceedingly 
conservative, but the paragraph makes me smile. There 
is scarcely a statement in it that is not contradicted by 
the present paper. If the conclusions of this paper are to 
be trusted, it is not necessary to recognize the parts of 
speech and to know the modifications of a noun, pronoun, 
and verb, nor the functions of the adverb and adjective, 
nor the compound subject and predicate ; and in the 
same paragraph where I have said it is not necessary to 
understand tenses, I must now say it is necessary to 
understand two tenses. So much for theory. 

Another illustration is the following paragraph (sixth 
grade); it reads as follows: "Teach the modifications 
of noun and pronoun; person, number, gender, and 
case. Teach nouns as common and proper. Teach 
the classes of pronouns. Drill in the use of who, which, 
what, whose, and whom, with reference to the errors made 
in their use." If I had to write that paragraph again, 
I think I should observe the language of bills intro- 
duced in the Legislature to dispose of certain laws. 
They do not attack the body of the law. They simply 
strike out the enacting clause. The paragraph is all 



232 BETTER SCHOOLS 

right if, before the word " teach, " you insert the words 
"do not." 

It may be objected that in the foregoing sketch of a 
course of study my order of introducing what I have 
styled the essential errors is arbitrary. It may be some- 
what, but not absolutely. I offer figures. Look at Ex- 
hibit C. The per cents there given are found by dividing 
the number of errors of a given kind in a grade by the 
whole number of errors in that grade. Notice that I have 

Exhibit C 
General Classification of Errors with Percentages 
See Exhibit B. (Error 43 not included.) 

I. Essential Errors. 

First Class Connectives Grade 45678 

a. Extravagant use of connectives ... 20 13 16 14 6 

b. Two errors in sentence formation (5 and 1) 18 16 12 11 7 

c. Two errors in form of verb (23 and 24) . 22 15 14 iq 10 

Total per cent 60 44 42 44 23 

Second Class 

a. Antecedents 5 8 10 811 

b. Possessive nouns 4 6 4 6 4 

c. Prepositions 47466 

Total per cent 13 21 18 19 21 

II. Subordinate Errors. (All on Exhibit B except the above 
and No. 43. Fifteen errors.) 

Total per cent 15 23 18 20 16 

considered in this exhibit : (1) essential errors, those we 
have just been considering (the full-faced type errors of 
Exhibit B), and (2) subordinate errors, namely, the 
errors in italics on Exhibit B. I desire to confine your 



LANGUAGE 233 

attention to (1). I have subdivided these errors into 
two classes, each containing three kinds of errors. Notice 
that I can do so, because even in the so-called essential 
errors there is a very clearly marked dividing line ex- 
pressed by the figures. So far as percentages go, the 
three members of each section belong where I have 
placed them. The figures in the first class are generally 
large and in the second generally small. 

I think that two important considerations emerge 
from an inspection of this table. First, the popularity 
of error is all on the side of the first class of errors, and 
I have assumed that popularity of error should be an im- 
portant indication in determining the order in which error 
should be taken up, the purpose being to get the great 
mass of error out of the way. 

My second consideration involves a rather curious 
inquiry. Notice in the first class of errors, considering 
total per cents, that there is a general diminution of error 
as you go up the grades. The diminution is irregular 
(and this irregularity will come up for consideration at a 
later stage in this discussion), but the drop is clear and 
positive. But in the second class there is no gain. There 
is a loss. We jump from 13 per cent in the fourth 
grade to 21 per cent in the fifth grade, and there we 
practically stay. Let me offer a theory to explain this 
striking condition of things. In dealing with the first 
class of errors, we are successful in part, even under 
present methods of teaching, and that fact shows that 
such errors lend themselves easily to treatment. The 



234 BETTER SCHOOLS 

presumption is, therefore, that if we concentrate we 
can do much more. I think that is a fair inference. 
But in dealing with the second class of errors, note that 
we make no progress. If we made a little progress, we 
could hope that with concentration such errors would ad- 
mit of treatment. But we lose ground. The inference 
would seem to be that here is a class of errors to be post- 
poned to a more advanced stage of development, and to 
a time when we shall be free to take them by themselves. 
At least it seems reasonable that a class of errors that 
evidently admits of treatment should be considered 
earlier than a class where the possibility of treatment is 
very much less evident. I think that this table goes far 
toward justifying my order of treatment. 

Now for the subordinate errors, the 20 per cent of 
scattering errors that occur in the groups of Exhibit B, 
which I have been discussing. They are the italicized 
errors. 

Can these errors be ignored ? I answer unhesitatingly, 
as far as formal teaching is concerned, yes ; and I make 
this answer in the interests of concentration. There may 
be correction of such errors, of course, but it should be 
of the most incidental character, not as a rule to be 
learned nor as a fact to be accounted for. Would I let 
the pupil go on making mistakes in such matters, as, for 
instance, the number of the verb, when the subject is 
compound, or the double negative, or lie for lay ? Yes, 
that is precisely what I would do. Recall, by way of 
illustration, this sage suggestion from experienced teachers 



LANGUAGE 235 

in the matter of discipline: "Do not see all the wrong 
things that are going on in your classroom ; be conven- 
iently blind sometimes." There are some teachers who 
note everything. There are other teachers who see 
everything, but do not look at everything. The wise 
teacher sooner or later ranges himself in the latter class. 
He knows that many things will correct themselves 
and do not need his attention. Here we have a principle 
that holds good also in the acquisition of learning, 
a principle that many and many a teacher does not 
know ; namely, that there are many things that children 
will learn without anybody's help. Dr. J. M. Rice, in 
his excellent essay on spelling, makes this very sage 
remark: "There are many words belonging to maturer 
years, easy to spell when the time for their introduction 
occurs." Why is this not true as regards grammar ? 

Again, teachers leave out of account this great principle 
that there is such a thing as a trained power of observa- 
tion, that in teaching any subject there ought always to 
be two requirements, one the facts, and the other the 
power of acquiring facts by one's self. For instance, re- 
ferring to spelling, the teacher errs if he expects a child 
to learn in school all the words that he is ever going to 
use. Every rational teacher knows that a comparatively 
limited vocabulary is the outcome of the school course. 
Subsequent acquirements are to grow out of a trained 
power of observation. This means that the power of 
taking in the image of the word rapidly and accurately 
must be acquired. If this end be attained; the actual 



236 BETTER SCHOOLS 

vocabulary of the pupil is a subordinate matter. He 
then has the power of accurate seeing, and the accurate 
power of expressing what he sees. Now, in language, 
whether English or French, the same psychological 
state of things exists. 

Again, in teaching one thing, we unconsciously teach 
another; that is to say, in all good teaching there is a 
tendency to accuracy and even to a knowledge that 
exists beyond the thing taught. I quote again from Dr. 
Hill, who very felicitously described this phenomenon as 
the " gracious overflow.'' If one exercises his right 
arm for three months, and neglects his left arm, he will 
find at the end of that time that while his right arm 
has made a great gain in strength his left arm has 
also made some gain. The same principle holds in in- 
tellectual activity. To our surprise, we often find that 
matters that we have not taught at all, but that have 
some similarity to matters that we have taught, are just 
as well acquired as the latter class. 

Therefore, I am optimistic and look for a constant 
diminution of these subordinate errors as a result of what 
I may describe as incidental teaching. I believe, for in- 
stance, that the double negative, of which we have 1 p>er 
cent in our eight thousand, five hundred odd errors, could 
be all but extinguished, and that lie and lay would settle 
themselves, not through teaching, but through sugges- 
tion, if a habit of mind toward accuracy in essentials could 
be formed, a thing that I have claimed is the most im- 
portant outcome of teaching. This, of course, is a theory. 



LANGUAGE 237 

But the teacher of grammar is now a theorist, and often a 
hopeless theorist. If existing theories came out anywhere, 
we might urge them with more confidence. But look at 
Exhibit C. In the last line all these subordinate, non- 
essential errors now under discussion are grouped. In 
the fourth grade they furnish 15 per cent of the errors, 
and in the eighth, 16 per cent. In the intervening grades 
the percentages are higher. No great success here, is 
there ? We could not do much worse. 

But the principal answer to the contention of the 
teacher that these subordinate errors, as well as the more 
important errors, must be taught specifically is this. 
The facts show that children do not make these errors, 
that is to say, they make them so seldom that there is 
no opportunity to give requisite practice in their cor- 
rection. What is the use of correcting an error that a 
child does not make ? To give the requisite practice we 
must get up a very artificial state of things and bring 
about these errors. Is that a very philosophical course 
of procedure ? I mean this, that we must not only have 
precept, but example, and it is just as bad pedagogy in 
the teaching of language as it is in the teaching of morals 
to suppose wicked things for the sake of correcting them. 

One more consideration at this point, which, perhaps, 
will allay the fears of the hypersensitive teacher who 
cannot pass over a single error. If errors are made so 
seldom that we do not get any chance to correct them, 
they are not made often enough to form a habit, so it is 
as well not to worry. Seriously, this word " habit " is 



238 BETTEB SCHOOLS 

the keynote to the whole discussion. The purpose of 
teaching grammar, as far as its use in speaking and writing 
is concerned, is to break bad habits and to prevent the 
formal ion of new ones. Bad habits need practice, and 
if practice is impossible, the habit, at best, is improbable. 

But what shall be said of the errors that were not 
made at all, or were made so seldom that their use did 
not reach one half per cent? In Exhibit A these errors 
are indicated in plain Roman type. They do not appear 
in Exhibit B. Look over the list. Tt is appalling. 

But we must drop lower still. Much of the time spent 
in teaching grammar is given to considerations in 
which error is impossible. In the foregoing discussion we 
have considered errors as probable or improbable, but 
in all cases they were errors. In much grammar teaching, 
however, the considerations do not admit of the possi- 
bility of error. Prepositions govern the objective case. 
In Latin, or German, the government by the preposition 
is a serious matter, but what about the English noun? 
Is it possible to make ;iny errors? This is an illustration 
of a large (lass of considerations, which take up much of 
our time. They relate to matters concerning which the 
child could not make an error if he tried. 

I now ask attention once more to Exhibit B, in which 
an import ;m1 consideration is indicated. Look at each 
groui> an< ' compare the column headed Lonrth Grade with 
the column headed Eighth Grade, and notice the figures. 

These figures indicate the number of errors per hundred 
pupils in each grade. In Group A, considering the ex- 



LANGUAGE 239 

cessive use of connectives, we have sixty-six errors per 
hundred pupils in the fourth, against ten in the eighth. 
Here is a large reduction; but does it not seem that this 
error should have been extinguished by the end of the 
sixth grade? Is it not a comparatively simple error? 
In the other groups the showing is worse (the sub-group of 
antecedents, for example). In Exhibit \) I have brought 

Exhibit D 
A Summary OP ERRORS to Show THE PROGRESS ok THE Shades 

I. Consideration of six of the seven essential errors. (43 

omitted. See paper.) 

Grade 4567 8 

No. of errors per zoo pupils .... 253 215 202 126 71 

Same reduced to a basis of 100 as a 

grand total 29 25 23 15 8 

II. Consideration of all errors except 43 and 44. 

Grade 45678 

No. of errors per 1 00 pupils . . . . 312 292 277 177 101 
Same reduced to basis of 100 as grand 

total 27 25 24 15 9 

together the errors under the headings that I have classed 
as essential, excluding the errors under the bending of 
Superfluous Words, Group B. I exclude this group be- 
cause, as T have stated, the error is not one of grammar, 
although a prolific source of grammatical error; and to 
ascertain the degree of success attained in extinguishing 
grammatical error it is necessary to consider the errors 
by themselves. Taken from this point of view, the 
figures per hundred pupils are as follows (see Exhibit \), 
I): Fourth grade, 253 ; fifth, 215; sixth, 202; seventh, 



240 BETTER SCHOOLS 

126; eighth, 71. Bringing these to the basis of 100, 
the following figures result: 29, 25, 23, 15, 8. There is 
seen, therefore, a steady reduction in error from beginning 
to end; but it does not seem like a very great triumph, 
when in the eighth grade, considering errors in funda- 
mental considerations only, there are still nearly one 
third as many as there were in the fourth grade. Surely 
in these simple considerations we should have reached 
extermination. Why have we not reached extermina- 
tion? Because, I reiterate, we have spread our effort 
over too wide an area. We have not concentrated. 

But suppose we take all the errors of Exhibit B, little 
and big, leaving out again the superfluous words (see 
Exhibit D, II); then, on the basis of 100, the relations 
would be 27, 25, 24, 15, 9. It will be seen here, comparing 
the fourth grade with the eighth, that we have made a 
reduction of just two thirds, not so much, indeed, as 
when only essential errors were considered. It is ap- 
parent, therefore, in attempting to do so much, we have 
not succeeded in the essentials, and we have succeeded 
even more poorly in the non-essentials. 

But the principal fact that I deduce from these last 
figures is this : I refer to I in Exhibit D. If we can get 
from twenty-nine in the fourth grade down to fifteen and 
eight in the seventh and eighth grades, why could we not 
by concentrating on the essential errors entirely extermi- 
nate them so as to leave, in the seventh and eighth grades 
at least, zeros, so far as these essentials are concerned ? 
I believe that it could be done. If it could, behold 



LANGUAGE 24 1 

a twofold outcome: first, the seventh and eighth grades 
are left clear for the teaching of grammar as a science; 
and second, we have obtained a trained habit of accuracy 
in expression and a studentlike attitude toward grammar. 
To these may be added a third, which is probable; namely, 
a more kindly state of mind. That is to say, the student 
has not yet learned to hate grammar, and if it is properly 
manipulated in the seventh and eighth grades, I see no 
reason why he should hate it there. To tell the truth, I 
am a little doubtful about the seventh grade. I should 
favor taking up the subject in the seventh, if at all, in a 
very extensive way, leaving the more intensive treatment 
to the eighth grade; how intensive we have no means of 
knowing. You see, this is a plea rather for the study 
of grammar than for the neglect of it. I think the high 
school teachers have a right to demand this preparation, 
but they will never get it as long as we muddle the sub- 
ject as we do. 

I am still doubtful concerning the formal study of 
grammar before the child reaches the eighth grade, 
and I hope that this study may throw a little light on 
the time for beginning such formal consideration of the 
subject. Here are the figures that seem to bear on the 
subject. Notice, first, a peculiarity in Exhibit D. In 
I the number of errors per hundred pupils drops from 
253 to 126 in passing from the fourth to the seventh 
grade, a drop of one half ; when we pass from the seventh 
to the eighth grade, we drop from 126 to 71, again about 
one half (44 per cent). In II, where all the errors of 



242 BETTER SCHOOLS 

Exhibit B are considered, the drop from the fourth to 
the seventh is 43 per cent, and from the seventh to the 
eighth, 43 per cent. You see that, even under present 
conditions, we make in one year, from the seventh to the 
eighth, the same progress as in the three preceding years 
taken together. This condition of things may have two 
explanations; either the teacher is teaching more grammar 
in the eighth grade or the mind has become ready for it. 
I do not ascribe this phenomenon to the former cause, at 
least to any great extent, for these reasons: first, my 
test was taken in January, when the eighth year was 
not half gone; second, the teachers had been teaching 
more or less grammar right along in the other grades; 
third, it is contrary to experience that what a child learns 
in his grammar lessons should appear in his composition. 
I am disposed, therefore, to look on these figures as indi- 
cating the eighth grade as the proper time for beginning 
the study for formal grammar. The figures do not 
prove this proposition, but they give it a strong prob- 
ability. 

Indeed, is not a suspicion forced on the mind, from a 
general consideration of the figures of Exhibit D, that 
our present methods in grammar take little account of 
the fact of the child's mental development ? Even with 
the present methods, ought we not to accomplish more 
than we do ? We have skillful teaching, and our teachers 
work hard enough. I suspect that if these figures that 
I am offering could speak, they would say, "You are 
taking up the consideration of difficult matters before the 



LANGUAGE 243 

mind is prepared for them ; you therefore fail and must 
fail." But it does not seem to be a bold assumption 
that the simple considerations, which the results of this 
study indicate as essential, are probably not in advance of 
the condition of a child at the time he must be taught. I 
believe that, in limiting ourselves to such considerations, 
we would be obeying the indications of nature at the same 
time that we were wiping out the 80 per cent of error. 

What about the language books that are issued in 
such great numbers ? I do not know. I suggest to the 
teacher to take a blue pencil and open one of those 
language books, and, in view of what I have offered, see 
how much she can do with that blue pencil. Yet I 
believe in a language book, and I have, for years before 
I made this investigation, had it in my mind to try to 
write a language book on the basis of such an investi- 
gation as this. Now that I have made the investiga- 
tion I feel more like it than ever, but I suppose I shall 
never have time to do it. I hope some one else will. 

It may be urged that all the findings of this investi- 
gation would be altered in getting results from schools 
in which there is a large foreign element. I have had 
some experience with a large foreign population since I 
made this investigation, and I have found out that their 
errors are all their own. Nevertheless, I believe there 
comes a time, even in the case of a foreign child, when 
the considerations to which I allude will apply. Besides, 
I am discussing English as a vernacular, and not as a 
foreign language. 



244 BETTER SCHOOLS 

I have spoken of seven considerations. That is a 
small number, but it will prove to be a very 
large number if the teacher tries to teach them all at 
once. I reiterate, in closing, the word which I have used 
many times in this study, and which should be the 
slogan for all teachers of grammar, and, indeed, of 
everything else, " concentrate." To correct everything is 
pedagogically wrong. It distributes the child's atten- 
tion over many points, and gives close attention to 
nothing. It is far better pedagogy to concentrate 
attention on one error until that is disposed of, con- 
veniently ignoring all others. Bear in mind that mental 
processes can become reflex just like physical processes. 

May I paraphrase an ancient saying, and say again 
that the grammar was made for the child, and not the 
child for the grammar ? 



CHAPTER XVI 

History 

Properly taught, history should reveal man's rela- 
tionship to his neighbor, to his country, and to his race. 
It affords fine opportunities for moral development, and 
for revealing the consciousness of higher citizenship. 
It is one of the most effective subjects for training pupils 
to think truly in regard to great national questions, and 
their relationship to everyday life. It relates man's pro- 
gressive steps toward a higher civilization, and should 
be a guide toward still higher conditions. It should 
arouse a deeper and more vital interest in literature 
and geography. 

History should be based on biography. A consecutive 
history of the world's evolution might be prepared by 
writing the lives of the great leaders of the successive 
epochs. Young children are deeply interested in the 
stories of the lives of real men and women. Even in 
the lowest primary classes, these stories should be told 
to the children. In addition to these, such stories as the 
Greek myths, Robinson Crusoe, and Hiawatha, lay 
foundations and arouse apperceptive centers for historical 
interests in the minds of the very young. These should 
be followed by such stories as those of Joseph, Moses, 

245 



246 BETTER SCHOOLS 

David, Esther, William Tell, Alfred the Great, Bruce, 
Columbus, George Stevenson, Horatius, Captain Cook, 
Shakespeare, Napoleon, Lord Nelson, Cromwell, Wash- 
ington, Luther, Watt, the Pilgrim Fathers, the Early 
Pioneers in America, Paul Revere, Daniel Boone, the 
Retreat of the Ten Thousand under Xenophon, etc. 
With the minds of the pupils stored with stories of 
epoch-making men and women, it is easy to arouse a 
deep interest in the history of their periods, and of all 
related periods. These stories retold by the pupils give 
excellent training in language, whether told orally or in 
the form of composition. 

The great mistake in teaching history in the past has 
been to regard it chiefly as a record of wars. Stories 
of national quarrels, of battles, of sieges, of the destruction 
of life, — these have been the leading themes of historical 
textbooks. Too often the great purpose of the teacher 
has been to drill the pupils on names, and dates, and 
records, to the neglect of the great fundamental princi- 
ples that underlie history. This degradation of history 
has resulted from the fact that school children had to 
pass examinations in history. Great as are the evil 
effects of final examinations in lowering the ideals of 
teachers, parents, and children in regard to the real 
meaning of education, there are few subjects that are 
robbed of interest and of truly developing power by 
examinations as completely as history. 

History is a subject that should be continued through- 
out life after school, college, and university life are over. 



HISTORY 247 

The school can merely arouse an interest in the subject, 
and train in its independent study. Dr. Arnold said that 
the purposes of the teacher in teaching history should 
be: (a) "To convince the pupils that history contains 
gold'' ; (b) "To train them to dig for it." 

The usual practice in schools is to supply each pupil 
with the same textbook in history, and to assign lessons 
by chapters or by a stated number of pages. This is 
the study of a book, not an intelligent effort to arouse 
interest and to guide in study, so as to form the habit of 
individual investigation. Again, the primary cause of 
the wrong practice has been the fact that the exami- 
nations were regarded as of such importance, and that 
they were based on the one authorized textbook. When 
the pupils are old enough to begin to study history, it 
is better to have them use as many different histories 
as possible, provided that they are properly prepared. 
The ideal would be that each pupil should study a dif- 
ferent history, and compare notes in the classroom under 
the leadership of the teacher, if enough good histories 
could be found. 

It is a common practice for the teacher, in assigning a 
new lesson in history, to give notes of the facts and events 
to be committed to memory. This course does not 
develop the power of independent investigation on the 
part of the pupils, nor does it train them to decide which 
events of the period deserve their most careful study. 
The study of history should train the judgment, and 
not merely the memory. The pupils should be asked to 



248 BETTER SCHOOLS 

study a period, to note the great events of that period, and 
to record them in the order of importance in their own 
judgment, with their reasons for ranking them in such an 
order in relative importance. Such a course of training 
will develop the judgment of the pupils, their faith in them- 
selves, their interest in the subject, and their individual 
power to study history profitably. It will " train them to 
dig for the gold." The class discussions in which different 
pupils give their reasons for considering some events as of 
greater importance than others will give clearer ideas 
regarding the value of historical study than can be com- 
municated in any other way. Such training will arouse 
a permanent interest in historical study, and will also 
qualify for systematic study through life. 

When a period has been studied, it is a good plan to 
ask the pupils to select the one leader of the time whose 
work was of most importance to his country and to the 
world. To do this and to prepare to give reasons for 
the choice made will contribute definitely to the develop- 
ment of the pupils, and will prepare them for the more 
thorough study of any subject in school or during 
after life. 

In the higher classes pupils should be led to use the 
public libraries where there are any available, in order to 
get more clear and more comprehensive ideas in regard 
to historical matters. Differences of opinion in regard to 
many questions are sure to arise in the classroom. In 
such cases it is an excellent plan to appoint a small 
committee on each side to read the best authorities in the 



HISTORY 249 

public library in regard to the questions under discus- 
sion, and to report to the class at a later lesson. Some- 
times it is advisable to ask every pupil to read up on the 
debatable subjects, not only in the public libraries, but 
in their home libraries. The habit of using a public 
library regularly may be of much greater advantage 
than the study of history. 

In such a plan of studying history independently it 
will be found that the topical method of teaching and 
studying will be a most excellent one. When events and 
principles are presented in chronological order, they are 
certain to be confusing to the child's mind. He will 
not be likely to gain a definite view of the complete 
evolution of any of the great elements of human progress 
as revealed in history. If constitutional advancement, 
and national expansion, and religious culture, and edu- 
cational progress, and literary development, and social 
changes, and industrial and commercial expansion, and 
the overthrow of tyranny, and the wider recognition of 
individual rights and human liberty, be mixed up in a 
sort of historical hash by the teacher, the pupil fails to 
get a clear grasp of the value of any of them, or of their 
relationships to each other, or to higher citizenship. This 
is especially true, if these vital elements are subordinated, 
as is too often the case, to wars and intrigues. A mer- 
chant requires more than his day book to understand 
his business. He needs his ledger to comprehend his 
various accounts and departments, and their relationship 
to each other. So, in history, the leading departments of 



2 SO 



IlKITKK SCHOOLS 



.1 nation's r( ial !!!<■ should l>< studied separately through a 
century, oi .1 period, <»i through the entire history of the 
nation, In order that pupil', may clearly understand the 
progress made in each department, and Its relationship 
to all the othei departments ol national life in theii pro 
gressive development . 

When one topi( has been followed carefully through 
the lifetime oi b nation, the study oi each successive topic 

becomes more easy, and more illuminating Kach new 

topi( necessarily reviews the work ol the formei studies, 
not in the form oi simple repetition, which too often 

passes loi reviewing, but in essential relationship between 

the old and the new, which Is the only t inly psy< hologii al 

pro< ess ol reviewing. 

To make the study oi history really practical, ii should 
Im associated with civics and government. 

When the history <»i the United States has been studied 
down to the present time, ii Is ;i good plan to begin with 
present conditions <>i development In government, In 
freedom oi the people, in social conditions, in Industrial 
conditions, in education, and in other departments oi 
national life, and to trace them backward, noting the 
epochs ol chiei transition to higher and better conditions 
a student Know:, the history «>i his country truly, when 
he has followed ii topically from the beginning through 

its growth processes to (he end, and then reverse:, this 

process and looks backward from the present to consider 

the Steps in the progressive sequence that led to present 
conditions. We understand the past In its relationship t<> 



HISTORY 251 

the pretent W< comprehend lh<: present more fully 
wIh-m w know thai il i'. lli<- logicftl OUtCOXXIC ol the 
past The 'Icii'i knowledge ol Ihepasl and the prei 
ciii ,Im>iiI<i qualify m to do out duly more truly In the 
future. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Basic Principles 

The underlying fundamental principles on which the 
methods advocated in the preceding chapters are based 
are : 

1. That the self-activity of the child is all-important. 

2. That achieving power, rather than mere memory- 
storing, should be developed. 

3. That children should be trained so that they may 
act quickly, correctly, and definitely under new and vary- 
ing conditions. 

4. That knowledge itself is not power. 

5. That the child himself naturally possesses power 
that may be developed, and that the chief work of 
schools should be to aid the child in promoting his best 
development along his especial power. 

6. That knowledge related both to culture and to 
practical life should be taught to the child. 

7. That all teaching is weak, if not positively evil, 
that weakens the individual power of the child by the 
processes used in communicating knowledge to him. 

8. That all educational processes based mainly on 
the direct development of the child's memory are in- 
effective, even in the development of memory itself, 

252 



BASIC PRINCIPLES 253 

and useless in the cultivation of real individual executive 
power, if not destructive of such power. 

9. That the true test of education is not how much a 
child knows, nor merely what he can do, but what he can 
do coupled with a well-defined tendency to do. 

The vital principle of self-activity was so completely 
ignored by the old methods of teaching, that a child who 
had been controlled from birth till he was twenty-one 
years of age by these school methods would have pos- 
sessed merely a feebly receptive brain instead of a 
definitely and creatively executive brain. The achieving 
and independently executive minds developed under the 
old training were not developed in the schools, but on the 
playgrounds, and in doing the work of the home and the 
farm. Very few of the American leaders of the past 
two centuries were leaders because of what they learned 
at school. Statistics prove that nearly 70 per cent of 
the leading ministers, lawyers, doctors, bankers, and 
merchants in the great cities of America at the present 
time were brought up on farms, and had to work for a 
living, so that they were allowed to go to school during 
the winter months only. It was not what they took in, 
but what they wrought out, that made them capable 
of leadership in the work of the world. The schools of 
a hundred years ago made men receptive only. Fifty 
years ago teachers began to try to make students re- 
flective. Now good teachers aim to make their pupils 
not only executive, but independently executive. 

Many teachers at the present time are satisfied with 



254 BETTER SCHOOLS 

activity on the part of their pupils. They are only half 
awake ; they have only a part of the great, true, educa- 
tional vision. Activity, even in response to the teacher's 
suggestion, is infinitely more developing to power, skill, 
and character than learning of any kind could possibly 
be, because it makes pupils productive and constructive; 
but self-activity makes them creatively and independ- 
ently constructive and productive. 

Self-activity includes the motive and the directive 
power of the child himself. There is no other test of the 
teacher's work either in the learning or the productive 
activity of a child that is so comprehensively revealing 
of the real progress made, as the self -activity of the 
child. Teachers usually do too much themselves in the 
work of the school. The greatest teachers are those who 
learn to kindle each child at the center of his power, and 
who guide him in the proper use of his powers in study 
and activity in productive achievement. 

The greatest aim of a teacher in securing her own 
improvement should be to discover new plans by which 
she may provide more fully for the independent self- 
activity of her pupils in learning and in achieving. 

The great purpose of education has been memory- 
storing with facts either told by the teacher or studied 
in books. Facts in themselves are of little culture 
value, and of less practical value as long as they are 
merely learned. Even principles do not transform 
character, if they are merely committed to memory. 
Principles become dominant elements in character, 



BASIC PRINCIPLES 



255 



when they become the basis of habits; and habits are 
formed by what we have wrought out by life processes, 
and not by what we have learned or simply thought out. 
To commit the most comprehensive catechism to memory 
may not even define clearly in the mind the moral 
principles it is intended to expound; and even when moral 
principles are clearly definecl in the mind, they do not 
become dominant elements in character by remaining 
in the mind. They must be wrought into life by self- 
activity, not merely imitative activity, before they 
become conscious parts of moral character. 

The new education will not be a mere book education. 
Books will always be an important part of education, 
but the effort will be made more and more to train pupils 
to love books and to study them, instead of making the 
books the basis of success in gaining marks at examina- 
tions. The old education classified pupils into the clever 
and the dull. The clever pupils were those who easily 
understood book learning, and rapidly committed it to 
memory, and remembered it long enough to repeat it at 
examination. The dull were those who were not inter- 
ested in book learning, and who were not successful at 
examinations based solely on books. We are learning 
rapidly now that most of the brightest pupils were not in- 
tended to find their deepest interest in books. Teachers 
wondered for generations why so many of the so-called 
dull pupils became the most successful men and women, 
and why so many of those who stood highest in class 
and at examinations became mediocre men and women 



256 BETTER SCHOOLS 

when tested by life. We are learning now that pro- 
ductivity is more important than receptivity. We are 
rinding, too, a broader test for an educational system 
than examinations, and a truer basis for school work than 
books alone. 

Knowledge is not power. The power lies in the child. 
Knowledge becomes power when it is wrought into the 
achieving power of the child, and used as an element in the 
child's reason, not merely to train him to think, but to 
guide him in action. Knowledge becomes power only 
when used by the selfhood of the child; and knowledge 
increases in power as the achieving power of the child 
increases. 

The primary aim of the school should be power develop- 
ment, the secondary aim, knowledge. In most schools 
as yet, the chief aim is knowledge, and the methods of 
communicating it have aimed at the growth of one power 
— memory. Recently a few schools have tried to re- 
member a little in the teaching of a few subjects that 
children should be trained to think. It is not enough, 
however, to train a man to acquire knowledge and retain it, 
and to think accurately in regard to it. Efficient service 
for humanity, for the community in which he lives, de- 
mands the development of achieving power. This is the 
only power that gives real value to the ability to acquire 
knowledge and to think clearly. There are thousands 
of inefficient men and women in every community, who 
have power to get knowledge from books, and from men, 
and who have their reasoning powers fairly developed. 



BASIC PRINCIPLES 257 

They are inefficient because they were stored instead of 
developed in school. 

To develop the achieving and transforming powers 
of children will not necessarily take time away from 
the important studies on the school curriculum. If 
children had proper facilities for developing their con- 
structive powers, their intellectual powers would im- 
prove much more rapidly than they can possibly im- 
prove by study. The child's brain is developed and 
coordinated more rapidly and more comprehensively 
when it is used to plan and to guide in the execution 
of its plans, than when it is merely required to acquire 
knowledge, to understand, and to remember facts or 
principles. The common processes of learning develop 
only certain limited areas of brain power, the least 
important elements of brain power in the making of 
efficient citizens. 

One of the real tests of the value of school education is 
its influence on the alertness of mind that is necessary to 
see the various factors that make up new conditions ; on 
the power of recognition of the relationship of the ele- 
ments of the new conditions to each other, and to the 
familiar conditions of past experience ; and on the quick- 
ness of decision and of execution necessary to make the 
best of the new conditions. The man who most quickly 
and most completely sees the relationship of new condi- 
tions, and the way in which they may best be improved, 
becomes most surely the leader of his fellow-men, and a 
most efficient member of his community. Formerly the 



258 BETTER SCHOOLS 

development of quickness of mental vision, promptness 
in decision, and immediate achievement were not even 
considered as a part of school work. Such elements of 
power and character, supremely important though they 
be, are still left to be developed mainly on the playground 
or in other incidental or accidental ways outside of the 
school. 

The schools will some day provide means for develop- 
ing the child's natural powers. Each child should pass 
through such conditions in school as will enable him to 
gradually become conscious of his highest power, and 
reveal it to his parents and teachers. His special in- 
terests may change, should change, in most cases, from 
year to year during his early years, but all the essential 
elements of his achieving power should continue to 
develop throughout his whole school course. The 
revelation of his especial power can be made only by 
operative processes. When it has been revealed, it is 
the most vital element to aid him in deciding what his life 
work should be, and to qualify his parents and teachers 
for giving him reasonable advice in regard to this most 
important subject. 

Some day the national schools, cooperating with 
Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tions, and committees appointed by commercial organiza- 
tions, will establish offices to aid in finding suitable posi- 
tions for the young people who graduate from the school 
to the productive departments of the world's work. Some 
day the various institutions that should be effective in 



BASIC PRINCIPLES 259 

deciding the destinies of children, and in qualifying 
them for the greatest success, will be coordinated, and 
then development and destiny will not be so indefinitely 
related as they are at present. 

One of the most manifest of the weaknesses of the 
educational systems is that they are planned and con- 
ducted in the interest of the comparatively few who have 
money and brain quality to enable them to proceed to take 
the full culture courses provided. Educators have pro- 
ceeded on the theory that the elementary schools should 
provide exactly the same courses of study for all types 
of children. They must learn that the great masses who 
are to fill places in the industrial and commercial world, 
especially in the industrial world, should be trained in 
the elemental principles of their life work early. Indeed, 
it would be much wiser to provide, for all children in the 
elementary schools, a system calculated to develop the 
masses of the children in the processes best calculated 
to prepare them truly for their life work, than to give all 
children the training assumed to be best for the few 
who are likely to take the higher culture courses in 
high schools and universities. Educators are now 
beginning to recognize the fact that many pupils who 
enter high schools are really weakened instead of 
strengthened by their high school courses. This has led 
to the establishment of special kinds of high schools, and 
of vocational schools. It cannot be long before there will 
be as complete and as well-organized a course from the 
kindergarten to the university in practical education 



260 BETTER SCHOOLS 

as now exists for culture and preparation for professional 
life. All who are to enter practical departments of life 
will not proceed to the technical work of the universi- 
ties. Those who should be the leaders in the industrial 
and technical world should proceed through the univer- 
sities so that they may understand the scientific basis of 
the work they expect to supervise, and may receive at 
the same time a practical training in the most modern 
processes of accomplishing the best results in their chosen 
vocations. 

No child is truly educated unless he has been trained 
to produce and achieve, and has the tendency to pro- 
duce and achieve well developed as the true basis of his 
happiness and of his moral evolution as a member of 
society. 



APPENDIX 

ANALYSIS OF FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL 
PRINCIPLES 

THREE PRINCIPLES 

i. The Divine Essence (possibility). Individuality. 

2. Self- Revelation (consciousness of possibility). 

3. Self -Activity (freedom to develop possibility). 

Note. — The real child (essence) is the divine part. To speak of a 
child as essentially bad is, from FroebeFs point of view, a contradiction 
of terms. 

Education is the evolution of the divine essence (possibility) by making 
a child conscious of possibility and leaving him free to develop it. 

SELF-REVELATION, THE ADJECTIVE "CONSCIOUS" 

A. Subjective View. — a. Consciousness of power necessary 
to the development of possibility (divine essence), therefore 
necessary to adequate education. 

b. Consciousness of failure, a hindrance in education. 
The teacher usually develops consciousness of failure. 

B. Objective View. — The child must not only know his 
power, but must know that the teacher knows it. 

Note. — The same principles are applicable to the teacher. She 
must know her power, and for her highest success must know that it is 
recognized. 

c. Supplementary considerations illustrative of the general 
necessity, viz.: that the child must be made conscious of 
power, not of failure. 

261 



262 APPENDIX 

I. Rewards of merit should be given on basis of efforts, not 
of attainment. Otherwise consciousness of defeat evolved. 

Recognition of effort results in highest possible attainment. 

Note. — Principle of Ratio, i.e. Attainment, is to be considered in 
view of the possibility. 

II. Promotions. 

Usual rigid plan ignores the child's possibility in a given 
subject. The standard in each child's subject is the child's 
norm. This cannot be represented in figures. 

Propositions. — I. No given proficiency in Latin, Algebra, 
etc., necessary for life. 

II. School must prepare for life. Therefore the conscious- 
ness of power should be the outcome. Ignoring the principle 
of ratio evolves consciousness of defeat. 

III. Marking System. 

a. The mark (necessarily based on attainment) supplies 
a false standard for self-estimate. 

Note. — Only standard of comparison for a pupil is with himself, 
otherwise consciousness of possibility is imperfectly evoked. 

b. Averaging places emphasis at wrong place, viz. on an 
average rather than on the individual study. This dulls 
consciousness of power. Marks are valuable to teacher as a 
matter of record and to supply data for her work. They are 
not to be given to pupils. 

SELF-ACTIVITY, THE ADJECTIVE "FREE" 

The Ideal. — Action to arise from inner impulse, not from 
external control. 

Note. — Self-Activity the complement to Self-Revelation. Why make 
the child conscious of power if the power is not to be exercised ? 



APPENDIX 263 

Proposition. — Froebel protests against interference with 
the development of the child's possibilities. 

Outcome of education to be reliance on self. 

The child has two natures (a) the Divine Essence, (b) the 
Intrusion. 

The Essence must be free. The Intrusion demands manda- 
tory treatment, but under conditions as below. 

Freedom to be considered from two standpoints (a) Moral 
Training, (b) Intellectual Training. 

Moral Training 

Basal Proposition. — For Moral Development, man must be 
free to do wrong. 

Statement of Argument. — The faculties grow by exercise. 
I. Exercise implies resistance. 

Note. — To the extent that Discipline interferes with choice, it 
defeats Moral Development. 

Law. — No command binding that cannot be accepted 
intelligently. 

This is the ideal as regards education, not as regards control. 

The opposite view may control. It cannot train. Ques- 
tion as to outcome, Self-control or External control? 

Self-control implies cooperation. The antithesis of co- 
operation is despotism. But the boy is to live in a com- 
munity, not in a despotism. The rebound from despotism 
is anarchy. 

Sociological Inquiry to determine present outcome as 
respects Moral Training. That outcome is that the individ- 
ual does right only when there is external control. 

Specific Considerations. — Petty dishonesties. Party 
control. Millinery crusade. Cruelty in preparing food. 



264 APPENDIX 

Immorality on the stage. Slowness of reforms. Sordid 
reasons for religion. 

All the above is the legitimate outcome of a school training 
that looks to external control as the outcome. 

Statement. — Purpose of Education. A Faithful Life. 
Faithful to Divine Possibility. 

Note. — Possibility implies variety of attainment. Moral Possibility 
varies as much as possibility in arithmetic. 

Practical considerations bearing on classroom. 

I. To exert power, child must be conscious of power. 
Therefore there must be opportunity to reveal self. 

Two forms of command. 

a. Do this, regardless of your views. 

b. Do this, and observe to what knowledge it leads you. 
Command must evoke internal compliance. 
Objection. — Child not to act unless he approves? 
Answer. — Actually and at present, no. Ideally and 

ultimately, yes. 

a. Command must be such as could be justified could the 
child comprehend. 

b. If all commands are of this character, pupil will come to 
trust when he cannot understand. 

Question as to outcome, allegiance or discipline? 
Question as to state of pupils, disciple or slave? 

II. Repression of child obscures motive. 

Teacher must know motive to train moral activity. Hin- 
dered activity or forced activity makes this impossible. 

Teacher often removes symptom, but not disease. 

The other side of the child, the instruction or training. 

This requires mandatory repressive treatment. But the 
source of the training must be known. This cannot be 
unless the child be free to reveal it. Apparent paradox. 



APPENDIX 265 

III. We occasion crime by restriction. 

Law may develop self-determination or crime. 

Illustrations. Murders in France. Capital punishment in 
England. Yard disorder, black list, public apology. 

Teacher seeks immediate results at expense of ultimate 
results. 

Necessity calls forth freedom or slavery. (Same idea.) 

Recalls the two kinds of commands. 

IV. Three Considerations. Precept, Example, Habit. 
They are necessary, but not final. 

A. Precept. Fiat does not cause things to be in the child's 
mind except in the early development of the Moral Senti- 
ment. Later development involves volition. Individual 
must recognize the binding force of precept before it becomes 
mandatory. Then it is only mandatory on the spirit. 

Teacher mistakes her own accepted beliefs for axioms. A 
self-evident truth does not need to be taught prescriptively. 

B. Example. — Imitation of a model life is dead. We 
must know its motives. We can prescribe an outward form, 
but not a motive. An ideal cannot be imposed on the spirit. 
The self-active spirit must recognize the principle that un- 
derlies the model. 

In school the pupil must see that the teacher is herself 
subject to the laws she imposes. This is the source of 
personal influence. 

Example is efficient so far as pupil's spiritual idea corre- 
sponds to teacher's. 

C. Habit. — Valuable, but not highest conception. 
Animal a bundle of habits. Man adds volition. 

The origin of the habit (the way it came to be) is im- 
portant. 



266 APPENDIX 

Habit is reflex. Action must be volitional before it is 
reflex. 

Conclusion. — The Divine Essence to be nursed. 



FROEBEL IN THE UPPER GRADES 

INTELLECTUAL TRAINING 

Outcome and method same as in moral training, viz. 
Self-activity as Opposed to enforced activity. 

Compulsion works same malign results in both spheres of 
Education. 

Postulates. — Non-interference. Opportunity for resist- 
ance. 

Basal Proposition. — Boy to find his place in life. If he 
never finds it in school, he will not find it in life. Such educa- 
tion is failure. 

Heme arises the idea of Individuality. 

Individuality fundamental in a Froebelian view of educa- 
tion. Disregard of this principle fills the world with misfits. 

Application to School Organization 

The Graded System and Uniform Course of Study may be 
hindrances to self activity. When this is the case, they are 
t<> that extent malign. They must be subordinate to the 

central idea of individuality in teaching. 

Uniformity not a regnant idea in moral reforms, in hospi- 
tals, in training Of animals: indeed, nowhere but in school. 

School training must look to individuality, (a) in teacher, 
(/>) in pupil. 



APPENDIX 267 

a. Teacher. — Superintendent must learn that the Froebel- 
ian principle of Freedom as applied to teacher and pupil 
is identical. Same malign results follow ignoring it in both 
cases. 

b. Pupil. — 1. Work of school must be adjusted to child's 
possibility. Grade is secondary. 

2. Promotions are to be made on the same basis. The 
child's individual norm in a given subject is the standard. 

Note. — Observance of this principle reduces the teacher's burden 
because she demands of the child, and therefore of herself, possibilities. 
Note. — Graded system thereby nol destroyed, but vivified. 

Proposition. — Each child is the incarnation of a divine 
purpose which the school must actualize. 

Four sample considerations that may hinder self-activity. 

I. Uniform examination. 

Note. — Examination legitimate and necessary to inform teacher and 
pupil. As a basis of rating or promotion it extinguishes individuality, 
self-activity, consciousness of power. 

II. Marking System. 

The comparison of pupils implied depresses those who are 
marked down, dulls consciousness of power, and therefore 
discourages self -activity. 

Note. — Teacher can make pupil want to do what she wishes him to 
do, only through self-activity. 

Note. — Purpose of marks not to promote, or inform teacher or 
pupil, but merely to record for teacher's benefit alone. 

Proposition. — We do not desire to do what we feel we can- 
not do well. 

III. Rewards of Merit. 

To be given for effort. If given for attainment, they dis- 
courage self -activity by diminishing consciousness of power. 

IV. Prizes. — Depress most pupils. 



268 APPENDIX 

Self-activity considered from Teacher's Side 

If a child is not free, teacher does not know him. Therefore 
she cannot reach the sources of self -activity. 

Conclusion. — Education resides in what we bring about by 
self -activity of pupil, not in what we communicate or compel. 

Special Application. Independent Action 

We do too much for our pupils. Result: Lack of power 
of independent action. 

Arithmetic as an illustration. Two weaknesses. 

i. Pupils unwilling to try long and patiently. 

2. Unwilling or unable to verify results. 

This is no preparation for work of life. Such training 
develops incapacity. Pupil is enfeebled when we do for 
him what he can do for himself. 

Special method. — Pupil to repeat his work until it is correct. 
Objection. — This takes time. 

Answer. — a. Time wasted in unnecessary explanation is 
saved. 

b. A smaller number of examples afford a better practice. 

c. Important consideration is the outcome, viz. habits of 
accuracy, persistence, and concentration. Slatternly habits 
of mind the outcome of present methods. 

Spelling. Special method. — Pupil to correct his own work 
before and after handing it in. The ultimate outcome to be 
absolute accuracy before handing it in. 

Language. Special method. — Same as in spelling except 
that regard is here paid to the advancement of child, on the 
principle that each successive acquisition in Language and 
Grammar is to be made automatic. 



APPENDIX 269 

PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE 

Following vs. Prescription 

Data to be drawn from phenomena as exhibited by large 
numbers of children. This is the scientific method. The 
opposite method is a compound of empiricism and egotism. 

Proposition. — When classes generally and under various 
teachers resist the teaching of a subject {i.e. learn with 
difficulty) the inference is that the subject or method is 
inappropriate to the child at the age. 

Illustration 1. Number in 1st and 2d grades. 

a. Taught with difficulty in such grades. 

b. Taught with ease in 3d grade. 

c. If beginning is postponed to third grade, results better 
in 4th grade than when subject was begun in 1st grade. 

(a) Because subjects taught are along lines of congeniality, 
favoring mental (self) activity. 

(b) Because the outcome is a habit of mental activity 
which favors self -activity when the time for teaching number 
arrives. 

Illustration 2. Language. — Little children learn language 
easily. Facility diminishes with age. 

Note. — Activity of children not volitional. They absorb rather 
than learn. 

Corollary. — By the opposite course not only is a habit of 
mental activity not acquired, but a habit of mental apathy is 
acquired. 

Illustration 3. Music. — Children will sing and draw. 
Path of least resistance indicated. Therefore a habit of 
mental activity is the outcome. 

Note. — Music is robbed of its virtue if singing becomes perfunctory. 



270 APPENDIX 

Illustration 4. Vertical writing. — Resistance to Spencerian 
angle long indicated its incorrectness. 

Corollary. — Teacher's hand to be on the pulse of the 
class. 

Intensive Illustrations 

A . Story telling. — If the stock of ideas is ample, ex- 
pression in language will be ready. Path of least resist- 
ance indicates the stimulation of mind to enlargement of 
stock of ideas. One important method is story telling. 

Note. — The child naturally " gathers material. " 

Basal proposition. — Story telling founded on the child's 
longing for the interpretation of his ideas and fancies. 

Note. — Success in story telling as an art is a matter of interpretation. 
The child invests speechless things with life. Later he will demand to 
understand the past. Places have their meaning. The story teller 
must recognize the inner meaning of things, must be an interpreter, or he 
is dead to the child. 

Here is a universal and therefore healthy demand. It 
points to an outcome of mental activity. 

Stories should not generally be for purposes of written 
reproduction. Morals to stories are impertinent. 

Corollary. — Story telling brings about most intimate 
relation of teacher and child. " Mind breathes mind." 

Proposition. — Reading stories in later child life adds the 
conception of the book as a book. 

Proposition. — An important outcome of story telling is 
the stimulation of the child to read. To bring this about 
the teacher must provide much material for silent reading, and 
also provide the opportunity to use it. 

B. Beauty. — Love of the beautiful an evident fact of 



APPENDIX 271 

childhood. To gratify it is not conceding a luxury, therefore 
is not optional. 

FroebeVs claim. — A work of art reveals the soul of the 
artist : therefore the beauty of nature reveals God. Beauty 
leads to the Deity, therefore to the highest truth. 

Proposition. — The path of least resistance along the lines 

of duty is along the lines of beauty. 

Note. — Decoration of a schoolroom is a necessity as an important 
means of moral training. Much use of color in regular work is desirable. 

C. Nature study. — Nature study a long time coming. 
Yet its necessity was indicated long ago by the nature of the 
child. 

Practice has not lined up with child nature. This study 
is the field for appalling violations of the law of least resist- 
ance. We have poured in facts. This is not the way a 
child comes to the knowledge of nature. The child is a ram- 
bler, a discoverer. He belongs to the first period of scientific 
research, that of gathering of data. 

Errors in conducting nature study relate to the kind, 
amount, and order of presentation of facts. 

Note. — School cannot in any subject teach the child all that he is 
going to know. 

Purposes of nature study. 

a. To train perception and comparison, b. To interest child 
in world around him. c. To widen his knowledge of facts. 

Note. — These purposes do not sustain uniform relations as regards 
importance in the various grades. 

Three indications (not exclusive) as to the course of Nature 
Study: 

a. Children love life. 

b. Children love beauty. 



272 APPENDIX 

c. Children observe in a surface way. 

a. Life. Order indicated: 1. Animals. 2. Plants. 3. In- 
organic substances. 

Note. — Recall fact that children invest lifeless things with life. 

b. Beauty. — Already considered. 

c. Surface observations. — Children see details but not in an 
orderly way. A certain amount of order will be tolerated 
by the child. The time to stop is when serious resistance is 
encountered. This is not the period for intensive teaching. 

Indications as to choice oj objects. 

a. Law of apperception. — This is evidently regnant in child 
life. Object must not imply too much of the unknown. 
Familiar animals as a rule better than unfamiliar. 

b. Season. — Changes in nature associated with child's 
deepest joys. 

c. Scheme of objects to have coherence. — Study not intensive 
but also not haphazard. The butterfly style of teaching is 
not the model. 

Processes. 

a. Observation. — 1. All senses to be involved. 2. Ob- 
servation to be not on insignificant facts. 3. Observation 
not to go too much into detail. 4. Order of observation to 
be guided by law of apperception. 5. Observation should be 
guided by a definite aim. 

b. Description. — Language and drawing. Language must, 
in the nature of things, be largely oral. Drawing to be from 
the object. 

Correlated helps. 

Literature (juvenile), songs, reading to pupils, story telling. 

Note. — So-called nature readers for young children are often in 
violation of foregoing principles. 



APPENDIX 273 

Moral outcome. 

a. Sympathy, b. Reverence for life. c. A tendency to 
recognize the Deity in nature. 

D. Spelling. — 1 . Criticism of spelling should be analytical. 
Investigation indicates that there are many causes of bad 
spelling, each of which calls for specific treatment. This 
means fewer exercises. 

2. As by far the larger proportion of false percepts are 
derived through sound, the importance of a large amount of 
oral work is indicated. The relation between a false per- 
cept and a sound is probably individual and intimate. 

3. The ultimate purpose of spelling is to write in a para- 
graph. Oral drill and column work are means only to that 
end. 

4. The great preponderance of sound errors and the fact 
that these relate to the child's own vocabulary indicate the 
error of concentrating on unfamiliar words. 

5. The introduction of new words is not for purpose of 
teaching spelling but to increase vocabulary. Such increase 
must be very slow. 

6. Children should correct most of their own errors. 

7. The moral phase is important. If the teacher considers 
as errors those mis-spellings which do riot indicate lack of 
knowledge, as shown by his own power of self -correction; he is 
unjust. 

E. Language. — Most difficult subject of the course be- 
cause the child's environment outside the school neutralizes 
instruction given in school. 

a. Proposed results of language study: 1. To teach 
to speak and write English. 2. To teach grammar. The 
latter except in a limited sense is not a means to the 



274 APPENDIX 

former but an end in itself and a means to analytical study 
of language. 

b. Actual results, i. Oral. Pupils cannot form an 
English sentence. Accuracy and fluency both wanting. 
Answers of children in ordinary work, fragmentary, obscure, 
badly constructed. 2. Written. Work lacks freedom, ac- 
curacy in expression, and fertility of thought. 

c. Reasons. 1. No clear purpose in teaching. 2. No 
rational adjustment of means to end. 3. No concentration 
on difficulties. 4. Excessive help. 

d. Remedy. Study and be governed by conditions. Ob- 
serve law of least resistance. Follow suggestions of c. In 
particular apply only so much of grammar to language as 
indicated by results of investigation, as follows: 

Investigation shows that the errors in grammar are few, 
permitting concentration ; that the order of treatment is ascer- 
tainable, and that the intensive study of grammar belongs to 
the eighth grade. 

Errors indicated by the investigation as popular: 1. Ex- 
cessive use of connectives. 2. Use of superfluous words. 3. 
Relation of subject and predicate. 4. Errors in imperfect tense 
and perfect participle. 5. Considerations relating to antece- 
dent of pronoun. 6. Use of possessive nouns. 7. Misuse of 
prepositions. 

F. Reading. Concentration on mechanical act of read- 
ing to the practical exclusion of interest in the story brings 
about mental apathy. 

Mechanical methods, which bring about more or less apathy, 
demonstrate their own futility, for apathy is an important in- 
dication of resistance. 

Silent reading in large quantities is indicated by the child's 



APPENDIX 275 

avidity for it and the progress he makes if the educational 
scheme encourages it. We hinder the child's growth by 
insisting that the reading should be largely oral. 

G. Arithmetic. — In addition to considerations in general, 
discussion of the law of least resistance. 

a. Training to automatic accuracy indicated in earlier 
years. Harder to attain after 5th year. Failure to obey the 
indication leads to feebleness both in reasoning and manipu- 
lation of numbers in later years. 

b. Oral work indicated by observation of conditions. 
Pencil used too soon and too much. Vast amount of practice 

necessary to secure command of arithmetical processes 
cannot be obtained through written work alone. 

c. On the other hand, what is called mental work (demand- 
ing reasoning) is introduced in advance of child's capacity. 

d. Crowding the child a violation of the law. A vast 
amount of easy work needed, e.g. in division of decimals. 
Be governed by the resistance offered by the class. 

e. Subjects taken in advance of child's capacity. A 
kindred violation, e.g. long division in 3d year. 

/. Premature development of reasoning power, e.g. ex- 
planation of carrying in subtraction. No help to child 
and he resists it. Many things must be done in advance 
of capacity for understanding reasons, e.g. learning to walk. 

g. Grube heresy. The fundamental processes may be 
carried along simultaneously but not abreast. After a 
certain point the child resists the whole Grube method. 

h. Use of concrete after data show it is not needed. Also 
failure to return to concrete when indications point to such 
return. 

i. The spiral method indicated. Any subject in arithmetic 



276 APPENDIX 

is resisted after a certain point, and further consideration 
must be postponed. But all topics may be taken in their 
rudiments quite early without resistance. But this does not 
justify a dilettante method indicated by some arithmetics, 
in which there is no law governing the treatment of any given 
topic. 

COMMUNITY 

Cooperation {Community) runs through kindergarten sys- 
tem, in games and work. 

Basal proposition. — Brotherhood in family and school, 
always associated with fatherhood. The outcome should be 
that the one should suggest the other. The conception of 
brotherhood leads to that of fatherhood, therefore to religion. 
Therefore brotherhood in school life is the condition favoring 
the highest morality. 

Proof drawn from (a) scriptural definitions of religion, (b) 
consensus of popular opinion. Both make brotherhood an 
essential condition to the conception of fatherhood. 

Proposition. — Genius of the school is generally not frater- 
nity but segregation. 

Illustration. Schemes of administration based on rivalry. 
Rivalry is a counter principle to fraternity. 

Caste in school has the same outcome as caste in society. 
Caste and solidarity are opposing words. 

Proposition. — Social instinct is inborn in children but we 
st i lie it. Illustrations. Clumsy treatment of prompting and 
tattling. 

Objection. — We train for practical life in which the survival 
of the fittest is the controlling principle. 

Answer. — (a) the present social conditions are a true 
reflex of this principle. But no one thinks they are to be 



APPENDIX 277 

intensified. All social reforms tend to their amelioration 
along lines of solidarity. 

(b) The child needs no intensification of the egotistic 
passions. 

Proposition. — Responsibility rests on teacher. If she 
throws away motherhood, she throws away brotherhood. 

The commands of teacher must be based on eternal neces- 
sity. Then despotism is banished. Neither fatherhood nor 
brotherhood can exist with despotism. The choice is between 
allegiance and discipline. The commands of Jesus are 
based on eternal necessity and are therefore the best illustra- 
tion of FroebePs conception of reciprocal obligation that 
he calls " The third something." First something is the 
child, second the teacher, third the relation based on unavoid- 
able necessity and not on caprice. 

Postulate. — Morality is social. 

Some specific illustrations of community. 

a. Chorus singing, especially part singing, trains for 
community in the future as well as the present, because music 
is a bond among adults. It has a moral tendency also, in 
that it trains for hours of leisure, which are the hours of 
temptation. It should be used as a serious exercise and not 
as a means of killing time. 

b. Reading aloud. 

c. Games, matches, history games, etc. 

d. Debates may in a simple way be introduced very 
early. 

e. Parliamentary practice. 

/. Democratic organization of school. 
aa. Class divided into two clubs for match purposes. 
(Emulation is distinct from rivalry.) 



278 APPENDIX 

bb. The privilege of electing by class in place of appoint- 
ment wherever this can be done. 

cc. An organization or lodge within the school to educate 
the sense of honor. Such an organization should discipline 
its own members. It should have its badges and other 
insignia. It will attract to itself many otherwise hard to 
reach. (History of Order of the White Ribbon.) 

g. Class tone, an antidote to dangers from impurity of 
thought. 

h. Solidarity. Thanksgiving gifts to the poor. Altruism 
essential to brotherhood. 

i. Patriotism. 

EPOCHS 

General Statement, a. Child at different stages of growth 
a different being, b. All the later epochs are potentially 
present in the earlier, c. All the earlier epochs persist in the 
later. 

Froebel's epochs. Infancy, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth. 

Scholium. — Life is unfolding, not repetition. 

A. Infancy. — Predominant characteristic, absence of self- 
activity. Importance of this epoch to the teacher lies in the 
fact that it projects itself into later life. (See c above.) 
When purpose is absent the characteristics of infancy are 
present. Purposeless activity indicates the supervening of 
infancy. Illustration. Child squirming, shaking itself, 
dancing without apparent intention, laughing aloud with 
no apparent provocation. 

In later life, the Bohemian instinct indicates unwillingness 
to be controlled by purpose. The wearied man of business 
returns to the old homestead, and casts aside purpose and 
allows his actions to be controlled by others. 



APPENDIX 279 

Lesson. Infancy may supervene at any time. Teacher 
must diagnose the condition wisely, a. Volitional activity 
drains the nervous force. The rhythm of the day may there- 
fore make dominant the characteristics of infancy, b. If 
this does not take place within a day, there is a rhythm 
covering a longer period, a month, a year. c. The moral sen- 
timent is, in its earlier development, without purpose (e.g. a 
mere matter of personal attachment). It may persist in such 
a form into childhood or boyhood, or it may revert to such a 
form. 

B. Childhood. — Characteristics. Presence of self-activ- 
ity, externalization of the non-ego. 

Child is a sponge. Lesson. Environment must be pure. 
Language must be exact. (Note. This period projects 
into later period, carrying with it its characteristics.) 

Froebel says the child unifies everything with himself, 
e.g. evil becomes a part of himself. He does not relate 
things to each other but to himself. 

This disposition is deplored by impatient teachers and 
parents. Such an attitude is wrong. The unifying power is 
easily lost. 

C. Boyhood and youth. 

Froebel' s important doctrines. — An epoch cannot be omitted. 
Child becomes a man not- by reaching a certain age but by 
passing through certain stages. 

The individual must be what the epoch calls for. The 
next epoch is not to be forced. Illustration, a. Embry- 
ology of eggs. b. Self-consciousness extinguishes childhood. 
c. Forcing youth on childhood by overdressing, d. See 
law of least resistance. Practice in class room must be gov- 
erned by characteristics of epoch, else epoch is extinguished. 



280 APPENDIX 

To recognize a later epoch as germinal in an earlier is 
necessary, but to force its development is vicious, e.g. a 
little child may be told to " be a man," but only in a limited 
sense. The lady may be respected in a little girl, but she is 
nevertheless not a lady but a child. 

Special Illustration. Religion belongs to age of adoles- 
cence. It is potential in the child, but its adolescent form 
cannot be forced on childhood without sad results. 



INDEX 



Accuracy, absence of, in ordinary 
school work, 41 ; manual training, 
an incentive to, 60. 

Achievement, "consciousness of 
power" as an aid to, 19, 20, 196 ; de- 
velopment of power of, 256-258. 

Activity, self, the law of, 1-10, 23- 
25, 42, 61, 202, 253-255. 

Age, the kindergarten, 11, 12, 15, 17; 
the playing age, 100-101 ; proper 
age for choosing future occupation, 
78-79; for study of arithmetic, 21- 
22 ; for work in language, 202. 

Alertness, 257. 

Ambition, encouragement of, 99, 107 ; 
lack of, 99, 107. 

Apathy, causes of, 8, 9, 41, 91 ; 
methods of dealing with, 43, 44, 45, 
74, 107, 128; signs of, 2. 

Appreciation, of beauty, 92, 94, 96, 
134; of literature, 133, 167, 168; 
of music, 131, 132. 

Arithmetic, 6, 8, 21, 34, 35, 49, 50, 
no, 114, 118, 121, 126, 127, 129, 
136-140. 

Attention, habit of, 103. 

Basic Principles, 252-260. 

Beauty, appreciation of, 92, 94, 96, 134. 

Child, the ; attitude toward work, 41, 
46, 47, 51, 52 ; Froebel's epochs, 
278-280 ; instinct of play in, 98, 102, 
103, 107, no; natural interests of, 
92, 93, 94, 96. 

Class Distinctions, the stumbling- 
block to progress, 56, 76, 80. 

Community Spirit ; 276, 277, kinder- 
garten, an aid to, 14 ; play, an 
incentive to, 104, 105. 

Competition, benefits of, 44, 103. 

Composition, 202, 210, 212-213; diffi- 



culty experienced by child in, 119- 
121. 

Concentration ; necessity for, in teach- 
ing, 208, 211, 221, 224, 225, 244; 
value of, to child, 13, 14, 126. 

Conservatism, 10. 

Control, self, 103, 104, 105. 

Course of study, enrichment of, 123, 
128, 129; flexibility in, 77; mis- 
takes in present, 23, 35, 45, 46, 157, 
203, 259. 

Crime, cost of, 15, 16. 

Criticisms of present school system, 
111-129. 

Culture Subjects, 73, 259. 

Development, law of child, 26, 27, 28, 
29, 30; mental and moral, of chil- 
dren, 17, 18. 

Discipline, 4. 

Drawing, 133-134. 

"Ear-mindedness," in spelling, 181- 
183. ^ 

Education, ends of, 26, 64, 65, 67 ; 
inducements to, 44, 45, 47, 51 ; in- 
dustrial, 49, 51, 55, 62, 64, 65, 68, 
69, 74, 75, 88, 259, 260; important 
fact in, 6 ; modern practice in, 2, 20, 
52, 53; "new education," 1, 2-4, 
255; outcome of, 7, 17; "practi- 
cal," 11, 89, 90; standard for, 30, 
46, 47 ; value of, 257 ; vocational, 
48-49 ; weakest element in, 1 ; why 
educate? 136-137, 144, 260. 

Effort ; importance of, 95-96 ; incen- 
tives to, 43-44. 

Encouragement, 19, 195. 

Enthusiasm, method of arousing, 95- 
96. 

Errors, in child's use of language, 214- 
240; in spelling, 175-194. 



281 



282 



JNDIOX 



" Essentials," the ; m taught pester 
day and to « l .i v, cia ta ,, 1 28, 1 io, 

1 (6 ; lac tor:, I hat del ermine the 

• .mi i.iiii y of subjet Is, 142. 
Examination!, 246, 255, 250. 

" l';i< I.,'' I Ik -ir plac e in eilm at ion, 14,5, 

1 .so, 254. 
Fertility of thought, 107 >oo- 
Froebel, eg, 21, 27, 28, 30, 3] . 

pa p3, 100. 

Geography, 8, 50, [4a 168. 

" Gracious Overflow," Law of the, ta8, 

■ \6, 
Grammar, 7, 204, 205, 206, 212, 222, 

33Q, 240, 24 1 ; < ril i( ;tl study of, 207 ; 

formal si udy of, 241, 242. 
Growth, law of, 2, 4, 25. 
( rumption, 39 53. 

Habits, bad, 15; basis of, 354-255; 
in grammar, 238 ; the reading, 165 
166. 

HappineSI, th<: basis of work, 100; 

mn ii( , an aid to, 1.50. 

History, 345 25 r ; topical method of 

studying, 247-248. 
[magination, 153, 157. 

1 11 nlalion, 48. 

Iim entive, t0 effort, 43 44. 

[ndependence, 268; necessity for, 2, 3, 
4, 6, 7 ; play, an Ln< entive i«>, coa, 
10.5 ; teat iiei ■':. failure to ret ognize, 

[QQ, .mo ; value of, in a< lion, 252, 
Individuality, T02. 

[nterest, arousing by play, qq, 107, 
co8, io(>; by study of geography, 
[48, 1 10, iS''"', 1 so ; awakening of, by 
manual training, 58, so ; by nature 
study, pa, p \, p5, p6 ; « bild's natural, 
pa, 93, p4, p6; loss of, 202, 203. 

[nvestigat [on, 1 be i bild's spirit of, pa, 
P3 ; geography, a spur t<>, C45, 148, 
i4Pi 'so. 153, iss, C56 ; in the study 

Oi history, 247, 248, 249. 
Justice, tp5 [96. 



Kindergarten, .30.-52, 36-38; appa- 
ratus, 18 10; cost of , is, 10; effect 

"ii child, [3 14, 17; materials used 

in grades, .51-32. 

Language, 22, 197-244; accuracy of 
expression, 100 ; freedom In, 107 - 

100; futility of, [99; oral work in, 
208. 
Literature, 8, 133, 134, 167, 168. 

Manual training, 54 63; benefits of, 
561 57, .58; history of, 54, 55; re- 
sults of, 50, 00, 01 . 

Map,, 150, [51. 

Marking system, faults in the, 19, 20, 
4.S, 'OS, 1 06, 355. 

Material, child's collection of, 92-93; 

kindergarten, 18, 10, .51, 32. 
Memory, relative Importance of, 153, 

"SO, 247. 
Moral development of child, 14, 17, 

2 5, 19.5 ; play as a moral force, 

105. 
Motor training, 104. 

Music, 12O, 130-133. 
Nature study, 22, 52, 89-97. 

Observation, 14, 148, 149, 150-152, 

'54, '55, I56i 2 35- 
Overflow, Law of the Gracious, 128, 
336. 

Penman, hip, i 10, 121 . 
Perception, 15.5, 15 1; failure to de- 
velop, 155. 

I'cr. onality, 0, 34-35; fundamental 
pi iiM [pie in ednc alien, 141. 

Physical training, manual braining, an 

aid to, 60, 61 . 
Pictures, collections of , for si bool work, 

158 iso. 
Play, 08 1 10. 
Pit asure, educational training for, 1.51, 

1 ; ', '.5.5, 1.54, 1.55- 

Power, 1. '7, 336, ^.S", 257, 258; con- 
sciousm : of , cp, .!o, i p6 ; develop- 
ment of, 1, 6, 7; power to reason, 
146-148. 



INDEX 



283 



Preparation, for life work, 78-80, 82, 

86. 
Principles, Basic, 252-260. 

Reading, 14, 24, 33-35, 100, 120-121, 

161-168. 
Revelation, self, 20, 21, 22, 33, 141. 
Rewards, 43-44, 45- 

Self-control, 103, 104, 105. 

Shop work, 60. 

Social instinct, the, 100, 104, 108, 276, 

277. 
Spelling, 113, 115, 120, 160-196, 235. 
Spontaneity, 202, 203. 
Stupidity, 161, 255, 266. 



Teacher, the, attitude toward child, 
2, 3, 6, 24, 25, 52, 254 ; grammar 
school, 5, 31; high school, 5, 29; 
kindergarten, 31, 36-38. 

Trade teaching, 84, 86, 87. 

Vocabulary, increase in, 167, 172; use 
of child's ordinary vocabulary in 
study of spelling, 186, 193, 194, 235, 
236. 

Vocational selection, 78, 79. 

Vocational training, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52. 

Wages, as affected by vocational train- 
ing, 86, 87, 88. 



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